Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav on Tuesday said allocation to the Indian railways in the Budget 2023-24 is "historic" and will fundamentally change the face of logistics in the country. Vaishnaw said higher allocation to the ministry will help lower logistics cost in the country and boost productivity of the Indian economy.
Unlike previous years, the railway ministry got a higher jump in annual outlay for infrastructure upgrade. This is a trend reversal of sorts as ministry of highways hitherto got the biggest hike in infra pie year on year.
For FY24, railway ministry has received capital expenditure support of ₹2,40,000 crore, which is up 75% over ₹1,37,000 crore allocated to the ministry in the previous year. The highway ministry, meanwhile, got a 38% jump in the allocation to ₹2,58,605 crore in FY24 over ₹1,87,000 crore in FY23.
"Budget allocation to Indian Railways is historic and would fundamentally change the productivity of Indian economy. Railways' logistics costs in the country would be brought down through the increased allocation. The government is focusing on increasing capacity at the bottlenecks and increasing the rolling stock on an average. Most importantly, the focus is on changing the passenger experience by building new stations at totally new scale and new design of trains, Vaishnaw said, speaking at the CII Partnership Summit 2023, organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
"Bullet Train is a project that is fundamentally changing the model of operation. Resolving project execution, quality of construction, absorption of design and the challenges that were faced ensures that India will create a world-class design in good time," he added.
On the manufacturing side, the minister said electronics manufacturing is close to $87 billion as an industry in the country. "The government has taken three major initiatives viz, creating the ecosystem, laying out a clear policy framework and focusing on developing the semiconductor industry. India would declare the first fab in the coming few weeks," he said, adding that India will have a vibrant semiconductor industry in the coming three to four years.
On the global digital divide front, Vaishnaw highlighted that globally four elements significantly contribute to the current digital divide i.e. affordability, accessibility, availability, and knowledge. "As the telecom sector is the entry to the digital world, therefore there is a need to make sure that the telecom sector is stable, healthy and competitive," he said.
