In the budget 2021, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the Indian Railways have prepared a National Rail Plan for India – 2030 that envisages a ‘future-ready’ Railway system by 2030.
In a bid to bring down the logistic costs for the industry, it is expected that Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) and Eastern DFC will be commissioned by June 2022, the FM said.
For Passenger convenience and safety the following measures have been proposed in the budget:
- Introduction of aesthetically designed Vista Dome LHB coach on tourist routes to give a better travel experience to passengers.
- The safety measures undertaken in the past few years have borne results. To further strengthen this effort, high-density network and highly utilized network routes of Indian railways will be provided with an indigenously developed automatic train protection system that eliminates train collision due to human error.
- The budget also provided a record sum of Rs. 1,10,055 crore, for Railways of which Rs. 1,07,100 crore is for capital expenditure.