Railway Budget 2019: Key 5 highlights you must know

The interim Budget presented by interim Finance Minister Piyush Goyal announced a capital expenditure allocation of Rs 1.58 lakh crore for the Railways, the highest ever for the national transporter.

Last year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has allocated Rs 1.48 lakh crore for various railway infrastructure projects.

Piyush Goyal, who is also the Railway and coal minister, said that so far, 2018-2019 has been the safest for the Indian Railways since all the unmanned level crossings on the broad gauge network have been completely eliminated.

Here are the key highlights:

Capital support from the Budget for railways is proposed at Rs 64,587 crore in 2019-20 (BE). The Railways’ overall capital expenditure programme is of Rs 1,58,658 crore.

Funds of Rs 7,255 crore have been allocated for construction of new lines, Rs 2,200 crore for gauge conversion, Rs 700 crore for doubling, Rs 6,114 crore for rolling stock and Rs 1,750 crore for signalling and telecom.

Goyal did not announce any fare hike or new trains in the Rail Budget for 2019.

The budget has made a provision of Rs 584 crore for various phases of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP).

The interim budget has allotted Rs 7,672 crore for the Central Railway in total, of which Rs 744 crore are for various transport projects. It will cover the Belapur-Seawood-Uran railway line project in the Mumbai region.