Overview
- Ashwini Vaishnaw, speaking Monday at a CII summit in New Delhi, said Indian Railways used 98% of its FY26 capital budget by late February and forecast that new high-speed routes will pull most flyers to rail.
- He said a ₹16 trillion plan for seven high-speed corridors is on track, with Mumbai–Ahmedabad at 1 hour 57 minutes and Mumbai–Pune targeted at under an hour.
- The minister warned that routes such as Mumbai–Pune, Pune–Hyderabad, Hyderabad–Bengaluru, and Bengaluru–Chennai would be 99% dominated by rail.
- He cited the Dedicated Freight Corridor, completed April 5, as cutting port-to-hinterland freight times to 12–16 hours and carrying about 480 trains a day.
- Vaishnaw pointed to wider upgrades, including 49,000 km of electrification, 36,000 km of new track, a rise in annual capex to about ₹2.72 lakh crore, and exports of train propulsion systems to the US, Germany, and France.