Indian Railways to seek additional Rs 18,000 crore to complete projects: Report

Indian Railways

Indian Railways is planning to seek additional Rs 18,000 crore of gross budgetary support (GBS) from the Finance Ministry for FY19 to accelerate its existing infrastructure projects, as per a report in Financial Express.

The Railways will put forth the demand for additional GBS in a meeting, chaired by the Expenditure Secretary scheduled to be held by November 15 to finalise revised estimates (RE) for FY19 and budgeted estimates (BE) for FY20, the report said quoting sources.

The move comes as the Indian Railways has utilised 60 percent of the GBS budgeted for FY19 and capital spending of Rs 50,700 crore has been made by end of August from a budget allocation of Rs 53,060 crore for this fiscal.

"Another Rs 6,000-7,000 crore of capex may have been spent in September," the source added.

The additional GBS is required mainly for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project (Rs 8,000 crore) and the western dedicated freight corridor (Rs 6,000 crore), the report said.

While these projects are funded through loans from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the multilateral loans are routed through the Union Budget for sovereign protection to the lenders and form a part of the GBS, the report said.