Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday proposed and allocated seven high-speed rail corridors ₹2,77,830 crore to the Ministry of Railways for capital expenditure in 2026-27, an increase of 10.25% from ₹2,52,000 crore in 2025-26.
Infrastructure work on Ahmedabad Metro and Ahmedabad-Mumbai High-Speed Rail Bullet Train project underway (ANI)Presenting the Union Budget, Sitharaman said, “To promote an environmentally sustainable passenger system, we will develop seven high-speed rail corridors between cities as growth connectors.. Mumbai to Pune, Pune to Hyderabad, Hyderabad to Bengaluru, Hyderabad to Chennai, Chennai to Bengaluru, Delhi to Varanasi, Varanasi to Siliguri.”
The finance minister proposed a new dedicated freight corridor between Dankuni in West Bengal and Surat in Gujarat to promote environmentally sustainable cargo movement.
Work on the high-speed corridor between Ahmedabad and Mumbai is already underway. Similarly, two dedicated freight corridors, Eastern and Western Corridors, are operational covering several states and districts.
Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnab said that safety will be looked after.
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He said, “ ₹1,20,000 crore will be invested in safety”, adding that “95% accidents have been reduced”.
“More focus is on track maintenance, loco maintenance, wagon maintenance, coach maintenance, speedy installation of coverage, installation of CCTV cameras, upgrading of overhead electrical system, construction of stations. Safety will be improved. Customer care and customer facilities will be improved,” he said after presenting the budget.
Commenting on the announcement of the high-speed corridor, Vaishnab said, “The world is watching the progress of the Ahmedabad and Mumbai high-speed corridors. It is being done at a fast pace while keeping the quality of work high. After the seven new high-speed corridors announced today, the country’s transport sector will be completely transformed and transformed.”
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“Chennai-Bengaluru-Hyderabad will be a southern high-speed triangle or southern high-speed diamond, which will prove to be a big boon for Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry,” he said.
Vaishnav said the projects will significantly reduce travel time. The journey between Chennai and Bengaluru will come down to 1 hour 13 minutes, Bengaluru and Hyderabad to two hours and Chennai and Hyderabad to 2 hours 55 minutes.
“The Mumbai to Ahmedabad corridor is being built. Next, the Mumbai to Pune corridor will be built. From the Mumbai-Pune corridor, Mumbai and Pune will virtually merge and the travel time between the two cities will be just 48 minutes,” he said, adding that Pune to Hyderabad would be covered in 1 hour 55 minutes.
In North India, the Delhi-Varanasi corridor will enable travel in just 3 hours 50 minutes, while stretching from Varanasi to Patna, there is Siliguri in just 2 hours 55 minutes, the minister said.
“The seven new corridors span about 4,000 km and will involve investment of approx ₹16 lakh crore,” said Vaishnav.
“India has to develop by 2047 so these seven corridors have to be done simultaneously.. The capacity of the industry and team has increased, there is a lot to learn.. We have already climbed the learning curve in the country.. We will move faster,” he said.
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Referring to the dedicated freight corridors, Vaishnav said, “We all know that the Western Freight Corridor and the Eastern Freight Corridor have a very significant progress, in between, we have already reached the saturation level as 400 trains per day are already traveling on this corridor.”
“The Eastern Corridor, the Western Corridor and the 2,052 km East-West freight corridor and seven high-speed corridors together will give a new transformation, a new energy to the railways,” he added.
