Railways mentioned only once, allocation maintained in 2024-25 Budget

The railway ministry is targeting 100 percent electrification of its network by July 2024 and laying of at least 2,000 km of new tracks, as well as rolling out the new Vande Bharat trains.

The Indian Railways was mentioned only once in the Budget speech of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 23, contrary to the expectations.

While speaking about Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act Sitharaman said that "Under the Act, for promoting industrial development, funds will be provided for essential infrastructure such as water, power, railways and roads in Kopparthy node on the Vishakhapatnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor and Orvakal node on Hyderabad-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor."

That was the Finance Minister's only mention of Railways in the Budget Speech for 2024-25.

The railway industry has urged the central government to come up with a roadmap for the timely creation of the three economic corridors, boost capital expenditure spending on better technology including rail-road connectivity, and robotics and enhance focus on safety to avoid railway accidents.

Sitharaman was expected to reveal some significant announcements regarding the Railway Budget but the Centre kept the capex same as was announced in the Interim Budget 2024.

Among the highlights expected in this budget were announcements regarding new trains such as Vande Bharat, Vande Metro, and progress on the ambitious Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train and Namo Bharat initiatives.

In the Interim Budget for FY25, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman allocated Rs 2,52,200 crore to railways as gross budgetary support, plus an additional Rs 10,000 crore from extra-budgetary resources.

She had also announced three major railway economic corridors will come up in India including an energy, mineral and cement corridor, a port connectivity corridor and a high traffic density corridor.

Railway stocks like Rail Vikas Nigam (RVNL), Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC), Ircon International, RailTel Corporation of India, and Texmaco Rail & Engineering were in focus ahead of the Union Budget.

However, these stocks fell around 1-5 percent after the Budget Speech on July 23 concluded.

Rail Vikas Nigam (RVNL) fell 6 percent, Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) was down 5.6 percent, Ircon International lost 9 percent, NBCC (India) declined 7 percent, RailTel Corporation of India fell 6.6 percent, Texmaco Infra was trading flat.

Post the interim budget on February 1, these stocks gained between 11-112 percent.

Rail Vikas Nigam is the top gainer with a 112 percent increase, followed by IRCON at 44 percent and RailTel at 37 percent. Texmaco Rail jumped 31 percent while IRFC advanced 28 percent, and NBCC is up 12 percent.