Seven new high-speed rail corridors announced

Giving a fresh fillip to the country’s rail infrastructure, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the development of seven new high-speed rail corridors to link major metropolitan cities and key economic centres through a faster, safer and more modern rail network. The budget also talked about establishing new dedicated freight corridors connecting West Bengal’s Dangkuni in the east to Surat in the west.

 “To promote environmentally sustainable passenger systems, we will develop seven high-speed rail corridors between cities as growth connectors, namely Mumbai to Pune, Pune to Hyderabad, Hyderabad to Bengaluru, Hyderabad to Chennai, and Chennai to Bengaluru. Delhi to Varanasi, Varanasi to Siliguri,” the FM said. Sitharaman allocated Rs 2,77,830 crore to the Ministry of Railways for capital expenditure in the financial year 2026-27. The Budget allocation includes the construction of new lines and the purchase of locomotives, wagons, and coaches, among other works.

 The ministry had received Rs 2,52,000 crore in FY 2025-26. The current allocation for the upcoming financial year is 10.25 per cent higher, making it the highest ever. Besides, the ministry will get Rs 15,000 crore from Extra Budgetary Resources, the document showed. According to the Budget document, the railways’ total earnings are projected at Rs 3,85,733.33 crore, while expenditure is estimated at Rs 3,82,186.01 crore, resulting in a surplus of Rs 3,547.32 crore at the end of the financial year. The allocation under the signalling and telecom head is significant as the automatic train protection system, Kavach, falls under this department. The ministry has laid strong emphasis on expanding Kavach coverage across the rail network.

 Out of the total expenditures of the railways, the biggest share goes on paying pensions to its employees. According to Budget documents, expenditure on pensions was Rs 58844.07 crore in 2024-25, which is expected to rise to Rs 74500 crore in 2026-27. Union Minister for Railways, Electronics and

IT and Information and Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw hailed the Union Budget 2026-27, saying that it will lay the roadmap for Viksit Bharat.

Addressing a Press conference, Vaishnaw said, this year, a Budgetary Support of two lakh 78 thousand crore has been announced for railways. He said that a total capital expenditure of two lakh 93 thousand crore rupees has been provided to Railways in the Budget.

Vaishnaw said that of the total budget, an amount of one lakh 20 thousand crore rupees will be spent on passenger and Railway safety. He also expressed happiness over the announcement of developing seven high-speed rail corridors across the country in the Budget.

These are Mumbai-Pune, Pune-Hyderabad, Hyderabad-Bangalore, Hyderabad-Chennai, Chennai-Bangalore, Delhi-Varanasi, and Varanasi-Siliguri. He said the total length of these Corridors will be around four thousand kilometres and will attract investment of 16 lakh crore rupees.