Railways utilised 59 per cent of its capital expenditure in first six months of 2023-24: Ashwini Vaishnaw

Capital expenditure by Indian Railways touched `1.40 lakh crore, or about 59% of the budgeted estimate, in the first six months of the current financial year. Speaking to reporters, Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said this was on the back of reforms undertaken to better manage expenditure by the railways.

“There have been 38 reforms recently undertaken by the government that has improved capital expenditure of the Indian Railways,” Vaishnaw said adding that twelve of these are structural while the rest are procedural.

Listing the reforms undertaken, he spoke about decentralisation of power, adopting Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) instead of rate contracts, and allowing the hiring of more consultants to better prepare designs.


Commenting on the next phase of Vande Bharat trains, he said prototype of the sleeper variant train would be ready by the December 2023, and the first train would roll out by March 2024. Vaishnaw also told ET that the Titagarh Rail Systems — Bharat Heavy Electricals HEL), and Rail Vikas Nigam (RVNL) — Transmashholding (TMH) consortiums would be relying on the designs made by Integral Coach Factory (ICF) for their sleeper variant trains.