Is the government’s focus only on Vande Bharat trains? Know what Ashwini Vaishnav answered to this question

New Delhi: The Government of India has tried to strike a balance between employment, rural development and increase in the amount given to the states in the 2024-25 budget. Along with this, he/she has also set a target to reduce the fiscal deficit. However, no major announcements were made for the railways. During the 83-minute budget speech of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the word railway was mentioned only once. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav has also given his/her reaction to this. In a conversation with NDTV, the Railway Minister described the budget as the highest capital expenditure budget ever. In this expenditure, a lot of investment has been made on the construction of new railway lines, widening railway tracks and making double lines. According to the survey, the capital expenditure in the financial year 2019-20 was Rs 1.48 lakh crore, which has been increased to Rs 2.62 lakh crore in 2023-24.How did the Railway Minister like the General Budget 2024?
Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said that before 2014, only Rs 35,000 crore was invested on the capital expenditure (capex) of the railways, today this amount has increased to Rs 2.62 lakh crore. This is the highest capital expenditure for the railways till date. I am very grateful to the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister for such investment in the railways. In the 60 years before 2014, new trains were announced without seeing whether the railway tracks had capacity or not. These were decisions taken solely to increase popularity, which had nothing to do with the state of the railway infrastructure. In the last 10 years, the Prime Minister has laid great emphasis on strengthening the foundation of the railways.

Rapid work is being done for the development of railways
Vaishnav told NDTV that 40,000 km of railway track lines have been electrified. Also, 31,000 km of new railway lines have been built. The Railway Minister further said that if you look at the electrification before 2014, only 20,000 km of tracks were electrified in 60 years, but in the last 10 years, 40,000 km of tracks have been electrified. If you look at the speed of track construction, in 2014 this speed was only 4 km per day, which has increased to 14.5 km per day in the last financial year.

During this period, 5300 km of new railway lines have also been built. A lot of attention is also being paid to security. Last year, Rs 98,000 crore was invested on security-related activities and this year this amount has been increased to Rs 1,08,000 crore. This will enable replacement of old tracks and installation of new signal systems. he/she also informed that “Kavach 4.0” has now been approved, which means that it can now be implemented on a large scale in railways.

Government’s focus only on premium trains?
When asked if the focus of the railways is on Vande Bharat, the flagship trains, and not on trains for the poor, the minister clarified that the approach is that we have a large low-income base and we are addressing that base and then there is an aspirational class which is coming up. That aspirational class also needs to be addressed. So we are working for the benefit of both. Vande Bharat has many features like armor protection, fast acceleration and semi-high speed operation up to 160 kmph, fully sealed gangways for free movement of passengers, automatic plug doors, ergonomic reclining seats and comfortable seating with rotating seats in executive class, better ride comfort.

As per the railway system, every train has a certain number of coaches. These include some AC and some general (non-AC) coaches. Usually, the ratio of AC and general coaches in trains is 1:3, i.e. one third AC and two third general coaches. This ratio has been maintained till now, but now it has been observed that the demand for non-AC travel is increasing. More and more people are travelling and the demand for travelling especially in general coaches is increasing. Therefore, the railways have launched a special campaign. We are manufacturing 2,500 new general coaches and will manufacture 10,000 additional general coaches in the next three years in addition to the regular production schedule. The main aim of the railways is to enable low-income and middle-income families to travel safely and at an affordable cost. These trains are providing world-class facilities for a journey of 1000 km for around ₹450.