Union Budget 2026: Five South Indian states to be covered under seven new rail corridors

Calling them “growth connectors”, the FM said the corridors will link Mumbai- Pune, Pune-Hyderabad, Hyderabad-Bengaluru, Hyderabad-Chennai, Chennai-Bengaluru, Delhi-Varanasi, and Varanasi-Siliguri.

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The corridors will reduce travel time between Chennai to Bengaluru to 1.5 hours, Bengaluru to Hyderabad to 2 hours, Hyderabad to Chennai to 2 hours and 55 minutes. The travel duration between Pune and Hyderabad will reduce to 1 hour 55 minutes; and between Pune to Mumbai it will reduce to 45 minutes.

At a press conference, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw explained that with five South Indian States interlinked, the announcement will serve as a growth multiplier for them.

The Delhi-Varanasi corridor will bring down travel time to 3 hour 50 minutes. Varanasi to Siliguri via Patna will be covered in 2 hour 55 minutes.

These corridors will be of 4000 km in length, and be developed at an outlay of ₹16 lakh crore.

The FM also announced a new dedicated freight corridor connecting Dankuni in West Bengal to Surat in Gujarat.

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A total outlay of ₹2,78,030 crore has been set aside for the Ministry of Railways in the Union Budget 2026-27 as compared to ₹2,55,466 lakh in the revised estimate of Financial Year 2025-2026, indicating a hike of 10.8%. The total capital expenditure for railways is at ₹2,93,030 crore.

Rail Minister said a sum of ₹1,20,000 crore has been earmarked on safety related measures such as track maintenance, locomotives, coaches as rapid installation of Kavach ( indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system) and overhead electricals.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has been granted a total capital expenditure of ₹3.09 lakh crore for financial year 2026-27 as compared to ₹2.87 lakh in the revised estimate of the current fiscal, a hike of 10.7%.

Allocation to state-owned National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has been increased to ₹1.87 lakh crore from last year’s ₹1.70 lakh crore.