Cabinet approves eight railway projects for Rs 20,000 crore

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved eight railway projects worth Rs 20,804 crore Wednesday. These are part of the national transporters’ push to ensure speedier goods and passenger movement across high-density networks. Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the projects span across 14 districts of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and 17 districts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana.

In all, the railways network will grow by 1,196 kilometres (kms) (expected to complete till 2029-30) through these projects. According to official estimates, freight loading will rise by 74 million tonnes per annum with the projects completing.

These projects are essential routes for coal, cement, iron and steel, container, automobile, food grains, petroleum products, and fertilizers transport.


Responding to a query on the delays in approved railway projects due to land acquisition issues, Vaishnaw said efforts are underway to minimise friction through modern designs and technology interventions.

“Land requirement has been reduced with modern track designs. Aerial mapping and artificial intelligence backed monitoring is giving actual situation of land,” the minister said, adding the Rail Bhumi portal is being integrated with land record of states to enable speedier land acquisition.

“The Railway Construction manual of 1950s was recently updated. Land related pre-investment activities are now started before project sanction,” Vaishnaw said, noting the Indian Railways is annually averaging 3000-4000 kms track related works.

According to Vaishnaw, these steps have resulted in speedier project execution. “50% Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) of the Indian Railways (for this fiscal) has been spent till the first week of September itself,” he said. The national transporter is slated to spend Rs 2,81,030 crore from the gross budgetary support (GBS) in financial year 2026-27.

Vaishnaw said around 750 crore passengers are expected to travel on the Indian Railways this fiscal, up from 738 crore in fiscal 2025-26.