Safety will continue to be the big ticket item for the Indian Railways' capital expenditure spending in 2025-26

Railway Safety.

Safety will continue to be the big ticket item for the Indian Railways' capital expenditure spending in 2025-26, despite the government keeping allocations for the Railway ministry unchanged in 2025-26 from a year ago.

Railway Minister Ashiwini Vaishnaw on February 1 told reporters that out of the total Budgetary allocation the Indian Railways has earmarked Rs 1.16 lakh crore as capital expenditure to boost railway safety in 2025-26. He added that in 2024-25 the Indian Railways has spent Rs 1.14 lakh crore as capital expenditure to boost railway safety.

The minister added that the Indian Railways is currently working to cover 15,000 km of railway track with Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system or Kavach systems.

"Indian Railways has trained 12,000 engineers to install Kavach system on locomotives and tracks so far," Vaishnaw said at a press conference following the presentation of the Budget for 2025-26.

He added that India plans to cover its entire railway track with Kavach system in the next six years. Vaishnaw pointed out that Germany took 20 years to cover their railway network with Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system and in comparison Indian Railways is doing a much faster job.

The Budget for 2025-26 has allocated Rs 22,800 crore for track renewal, Rs 6,800 crore on signalling and telecom upgradation, Rs 7,000 crore on road safety works - Road Over/Under Bridges, another Rs 706 crore on road safety works - level crossings and Rs 2,169 crore for bridge works, tunnel works and approaches in 2025-26.

While the allocations for the aforementioned have remained largely unchanged when compared to the revised estimates for 2024-25 as shown in the Budget for 2025-26, signalling and telecom work saw a 13 percent jump in allocation when compared to last year.

Furthermore, the Indian Railways will continue to transfer Rs 45,000 crore to the Railway Safety Fund in 2025-26, the same amount that was transferred last year.

The Budget has allocated Rs 22,800 crore for track renewal in 2025-26 vs Rs 17,651.98  crore allocated in the Budget for 2024-25, Rs 4,550 crore for gauge conversion vs Rs 4,719.50 crore allocated last year, and Rs 32,000 crore for doubling vs Rs 29,312.19 crore allocated last year.

However, the national carrier will spend Rs 22,669 crore for track renewal, Rs 4,536.45 crore for gauge conversion and Rs 31,031.86 crore will for doubling in 2024-25, revised estimates show.

A sum of Rs 32,235.24 crore has been allocated on setting new lines as well in 2025-26 against allocation of Rs 34,602.75 crore last year and actual spending of Rs 31,458.83 crore in 2024-25.

Last month, railway minister Ashiwini Vaishnaw told Moneycontrol that safety will continue to be the big ticket item for the railways' capital expenditure in 2025-26.

"Safety has been very the most important priority over the last 10 years. In fact, in the last year, our capital expenditure on safety was about Rs 1.8 lakh crores and that is going to continue in FY26," Vaishnaw said.

The ministry spent 76 percent of its budgetary capital expenditure for 2024-25 in the first nine months of the financial year, according to railways’ estimates.

Vaishnaw added that he met the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) delegation and had a detailed discussion on safety technologies and maintenance practices.

"I have spent the whole day with the Swizz Railways understanding their maintenance practises. I learned about how the tracks are maintained, how frequently they replace the tracks, etc," Vaishnaw told Moneycontrol.

Expenditure on safety-related works, such as level crossings, over- and under-bridges, track renewals, bridges and signalling has already reached 82 percent of the allocated budget of Rs 34,414 crore.

Kavach is an indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system by Indian Railways to enhance safety by preventing train collisions by automatically activating the braking system of the train.

The renewed push for the Kavach system comes in the backdrop of several train collisions.

On June 17, at least nine people were killed and more than as a goods train rammed the Kanchanjunga Express in West Bengal’s Darjeeling district. A year earlier, around 300 people were killed and over thousand injured when two passenger trains and a goods train collided in a horrific accident in Odisha’s Balasore.