Railway, Minister Piyush Goyal believes that the Budget has addressed all the “pain points”. Excerpts from an interview with BusinessLine :

How will the diesel price hike impact the Railways?

When prices were up, we cut duty on fuel. International prices and dollar rates are down now. However, infrastructure is the need of the hour, and if we have to do a bit to finance for that, I don’t think the people of India will mind.

We are moving so rapidly to electrification that in 3-4 years we will not have any need for diesel.

How do you rate the success of the PPP model in the logistics sector?

A lot of investment has taken place in roads and airports through the PPP model.

In railways, the model hasn’t been used much, but we are starting now. Catering and cleanliness have been outsourced. Now, we are going for it on a much bigger scale.

We have to plan investments worth ₹50-lakh crore. Companies will come in only when the planning gets done.

Where do you plan to invest the amount?

The ₹50-lakh-crore investments discussed in the Budget have a lot of dimensions. We have to examine the precise requirements such as where do we need more dedicated freight corridors, more semi-high-speed or high-speed trains, and double, triple or quadruple tracks. We are doing studies on these.

What, according to you has this Budget addressed?

It is a very balanced Budget. There has been no compromise on fiscal prudence. The FM has made sure that all the pain points have been addressed, be it NBFCs, HFCs, real estate or start-ups.

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