The Railways Ministry will receive Rs 20,000 crore under the second tranche of the supplementary demand for grants.

It will take the allotment for the railways’ capital expenditure to over Rs 2.35 trillion in 2021-22. After Parliament nods to the supplementary demand, the railways’ budget will increase by Rs 40,575.93 crore.

M Nageshwara Rao, Rail Budget expert, told the media that the balance will be re-appropriated from the current allotments with the railways. Rs 20,000 crore will come under permission from Parliament, and the remaining by re-appropriating from existing grants. The re-appropriation of the current funds is an indication of the reworked priorities of the railways.

After the parliamentary approval, there will be an added transfer of Rs 10,000 crore to the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh from gross budgetary support. The fund was formed in 2017-18 with a corpus of Rs 1 trillion for critical safety-related works over five years. The yearly evaluated outlay for this fund was Rs 20,000 crore.

The Union Budget 2021-22 had allotted Rs 5,000 crore to this fund. With the allotment in the supplementary demand for grants, the fund will have Rs 15,000 crore this financial year. It will broadly meet the costs for track renewal (Rs 7,500 crore) and bridge works (Rs 1,200 crore). Under the supplementary grants, Rs 12,000 crore has been provided for significant advancement of stations and Rs 11,000 crore for including the price of 100 train sets.

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