Bringing on track

Railways must address structural inefficiencies

It has been exactly a hundred years since the first Railways Budget was presented in 1924 — an era when the size of the Railways Budget exceeded the size of the general Budget. Much has changed since then and India no longer has a separate Railways Budget. In this year’s Budget, unsurprisingly, the Railways found very little space. Mere absence in the Budget speech, however, should not be seen as neglect. On the contrary, for 2024-25, the capital expenditure of the Railways has been pegged at Rs 2.62 trillion, of which gross budgetary support stands at Rs