Interim Budget 2024: 40,000 normal rail bogies to be converted to Vande Bharat standards

Budget 2024: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during her Interim Budget 2024 speech, said that 40,000 normal rail bogies will be converted to Vande Bharat standards. She also spoke about three economic railway corridor programmes that would be implemented under PM Gati Shakti. 

“Forty thousand normal rail bogies will be converted to the Vande Bharat standards to enhance safety, convenience and comfort of passengers,” said FM Sitharaman. 

Railways stocks such as Jupiter Wagons Ltd, Titagarh Rail Systems Ltd, Siemens Ltd and RVNL Ltd could be key beneficiaries of the FM Sitharaman's announcement. "This will further create job opportunities while reducing travel time as well as increasing tourism across the country," Sanjay Moorjani, Research Analyst at SAMCO Securities.

She also said that three major economic corridor programmes, identified under PM Gati Shakti for enabling multi-modal connectivity, will be implemented. These are as follows:

• Energy, mineral and cement corridors
• Port connectivity corridors
• High traffic density corridors

FM Sitharaman said that these corridors will improve logistics efficiency and reduce cost. 

“The resultant decongestion of the high-traffic corridors will also help in improving operations of passenger trains, resulting in safety and higher travel speed for passengers. Together with dedicated freight corridors, these three economic corridor programmes will accelerate our GDP growth and reduce logistic costs,” she said.  

The minister also spoke about the expansion of Metro Rail and NaMo Bharat that can be the catalyst for required urban transformation. “Expansion of these systems will be supported in large cities focusing on transit-oriented development,” she said. 

Separately, she also said that expansion of existing airports and development of new airports will continue expeditiously. FM Sitharaman further stated that the government will expand and strengthen the e-vehicle ecosystem by supporting manufacturing and charging infrastructure. “Greater adoption of e-buses for public transport networks will be encouraged through payment security mechanism,” she said.

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