Rail budget: Finance Minister announces minor benefits, no major changes

The budget for Indian Railways, now part of the general Budget, has been allocated Rs 1.48 lakh crore as capital expenditure.

The other highlights are:

• 35,000 km of tracks will be completed under the Bharatmala project
• Bharatmala project will have an outlay of Rs 5.35 lakh crore
• 3.600 km of tracks to be renewed
• 4,267 unmanned railway crossings to be eliminated
• Mumbai's local train network will get 90 km of new tracks with a budget of Rs 11,000 crore
• Bengaluru Metro network will have a budget of Rs 17,000 crore
• All railway station that have footfalls of 25,000 and more will have elevators
• 600 major stations to be redeveloped
• All stations and trains to have Wi-Fi and CCTV over a period of time
• 12,000 wagons, 5,160 coaches and 700 locomotives to be procured