Budget 2024 — Major Chunk Of Railways Allocation Meant For Safety-Related Work, Installing Kavach: Ashwini Vaishnaw

New Delhi, Jul 23 The Indian Railways will spend a major chunk of its budgetary allocation on train safety-related activities and the installation of the automatic train-protection system known as "Kavach", Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday while commenting on the Union Budget 2024-25. "A big chunk of this allocation -- Rs 1,08,795 crore -- is meant for safety-related activities, such as replacement of old tracks with new ones, improvement in the signalling system and construction of flyovers and underpasses, and to install Kavach, among others," he said. Similarly, in 2014, 4 km per day new track construction used to happen on an average, but in the last financial year, the railways constructed tracks on an average for 14.5 km per day, which means in the entire financial year, it constructed 5,300 km new tracks," Vaishnaw said. "So far as employment is concerned, in 10 years of the UPA rule, 4.11 lakh jobs were offered in the railways, whereas in 10 years of the Modi regime, five lakh jobs were offered, which is 20 per cent more than the UPA rule," Vaishnaw said.