The infrastructure, both social and physical, was named as the first dimension of Vision 2030 presented by Finance Minister Piyush Goyal while announcing the interim Union Budget 2019 on Friday.

While this year the budget speech missed big numbers being announced for the infrastructure sector, which was certainly the case of last couple of years, Finance Minister has announced allocating Rs. 19,000 crore for the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) –a rural roads scheme launched by the government two decades back to provide all-weather access to eligible unconnected habitations. This is similar to last year's budget allocation for this scheme.

In his Budget speech Finance Minister noted that India has emerged as the fastest highway developer in the world with 27 km of highways being constructed per day. He added that some of the road projects stuck for decades, such as Eastern Peripheral Expressway and Bogibeel Bridge in Assam, have been completed.

Goyal also noted the significance of Sagarmala Programme in using the potential of India's inland waterways. First time container cargo was moved via inland waters from Kolkata to Varanasi and the same would be introduced to deliver containers to North East via Brahmaputra river.

PTI adds:

Railway’s capital expenditure programme

The minister said, on the railways front all unmanned level crossings in broad gague network have been completely eliminated.

Capital expenditure programme of Railways, he said, is at an all-time high of Rs 1.58 lakh crore in the next fiscal.

He said introduction of first indigenously built Vande Bharat Express is in line with Make in India drive.

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