Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Railways on February  1st, 2024 held an interaction with media persons of Northeast in connection with the fund allotted in the interim Budget 2024-25 for Railways. Chetan Kumar Shrivastava,General Manager of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) and senior railway officials of Headquarters were also present. While addressing the media persons, the Minister of Railways informed that a capital outlay of more than Rs. 2.5 lakh crores have been provided in the budget for the Indian Railways.

The Railway Minister mentioned that three major railway corridor programs will be implemented as announced by the Finance Minister in her budget speech. These are Energy, mineral and cement corridor; Port-connectivity corridor and High-traffic density corridor. They will improve logistics efficiency and reduce transportation cost that will improve safety for passenger trains as well. 40,000 normal railway coaches will be converted to Vande Bharat standards, Finance Minister mentioned.

The Minister of Railways said that 60 stations in Northeast are being redeveloped with world class amenities, facilities. The Minister also informed that the One Station One Product stall operational all over NFR are providing a direct selling market to locally produced items which are getting a good response from passengers with a profitable growth.

During the interaction, the Minister said that physical progress of all the ongoing projects in the Northeastern region are advancing at a good pace. Despite being in Himalayan region and running through tough terrains, project works are being done going on 24x7 basis for early completion.

Moreover, the Gross Budget Allocation for Railway infrastructure projects in Northeast for the FY 2024-25is Rs. 10,369 crores. It is 388% higher as compared to average budget allocation of Rs. 2,122 crores during 2009-14. This year budget allocation shows unprecedented growth in several segments like new line and doubling projects, track renewal works, traffic facilities, road safety works, bridge works, signaling, workshop modernization and customer amenities etc. The Minister of Railways also informed that an investment of Rs. 81,941 crores is being done in the entire Northeastern region for development of Railway infrastructure.