Rail Budget 2016: Allocation of Northeast Frontier railway up by Rs 4934 crore

GUWAHATI: The railway budget has increased the allocation of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) to Rs 40,000 crore from Rs 35,065 crore, but there were no big-bang announcements for poll-bound Assam.

Railway minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu in his budget speech stated that better connectivity to the north eastern states is of utmost importance for the railways.

“Indian Railways have opened the long-awaited broad gauge Lumding-Silchar section in Assam, thus connecting Barak Valley with rest of the country. It also brought Agartala, the capital of Tripura, on to the broad gauge network. The states of Mizoram and Manipur are also set to come on the broad gauge map of the country soon with the commissioning of the Kathakal-Bhairabi and Arunachal-Jiribam gauge conversion projects,”

“Keeping in view the various odds, Railway Budget 2016-17 is an attempt to put the railways back on track, with focus on long term measures. There are no negatives and populist measures in the Budget,” said RS Joshi, chairman of the local industry body, Federation of Industry and Commerce of the North East Region (FINER).

He added that the focus on rail connectivity in the north east region is being stressed upon, which is a welcome move. Besides, the announcement of 44 new projects, increased outlays for improving the infrastructure are also good indicators for the economy. While the Railway Budget is good on intent, implementation will be a challenge.