Budget 2024-25: Rs 1.8L cr outlay, Rlys to put safety on track

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, July 23

More than 70 per cent of the capital expenditure allocated to the Railways in the Budget proposed by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday has been earmarked for strengthening the safety system of the Railways.

Briefing reporters regarding the Budget proposals, Railway Minister Ashwani Vaishnaw said the Railways have been allocated Rs 2.52 lakh crore which is Rs 12,000 crore more than Rs 2.4 lakh crore allocated in 2023-24.

Vaishnaw said Rs 1.8 lakh crore out of the Rs 2.62 lakh crore would be spent on safety including installation of the Kavach network. Vaishnaw said the latest version of the collision prevention system (Kavach 4.0) has been recently rolled out by the Research Design and Standard Organisation (RDSO) and this is being installed rapidly.

In June last year, 293 people died following a collision between two trains. Since then, a number of train accidents involving fatalities have been reported in the country.

Automatic signalling system installed by the Railways has come under the scanner in the wake of the accidents as a number of this mishaps were found to have taken place because of signalling errors.

In the Budget proposals presented on Tuesday, Rs 4,647 crore has been allocated under the head of signalling and telecom. Funds allocated for signalling and telecom in the last fiscal was Rs 3,580 crore only.

The allocation on account of training and human resource development has gone up to Rs 416.83 crore from Rs 242.12 crore allocated last year. The Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS), while investigating the Kanchanjunga Express accident that took place last month resulting in 10 deaths, recommended giving training to loco pilots after the CRS found out that most of the loco pilots were ignorant regarding the speed protocol that is needed to be maintained when automatic signalling system develops problems.

Fund allocated for track renewal also saw a jump to Rs 17,651 crore from Rs 16,826 crore allocated in 2023-24.

Allocation for road safety works (level crossings, over-bridges and underpasses) went up to Rs 9,979 crore from Rs 6,697 crore in the last fiscal.

Rapid installation

The latest version of the collision prevention system (Kavach 4.0) has been recently rolled out by the Research Design and Standard Organisation and is being installed rapidly