Budget allocation for suburban railway projects under MUTP drops to ₹575 crore

For 2022-2023, MUTP 2 has received ₹185 crore, while MUTP 3 and MUTP 3A got ₹190 crore and ₹200 crore, respectively.

Mumbai: In what can be called a decline in budgetary allocation for the suburban railway infrastructure, the Union Budget has earmarked ₹575 crore in 2022-2023 for suburban railway projects under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP). This marks a decline of ₹75 crore as compared to 2021-2022 when ₹650 crore was allocated for MUTP projects.

The fourth suburban railway corridor between Seawoods-Belapur and Uran has received ₹150 crore in the budget of 2022 and 2023. (Vijay Bate/HT Photo)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project the high-speed railway corridor between Mumbai and Ahmedabad has received ₹19,102 crore as per the pink book for the Northern Railway. The Extra Budgetary Resources (EBR) according to pink book documents of Western Railway is Rs.5,000 crore for the project. The EBR allocation is down by ₹2,897 crore in comparison to 2021-2022, which had seen an allocation of ₹7,897 crore for the project.

In 2020-2021, ₹5,000 crore was allocated for the project and in 2019-2020, ₹1,000 crore was earmarked for the high-speed rail corridor project.

Pink book, the document that has details of money allocation for railway projects for every zonal railway, was tabled by Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in Parliament on Wednesday.

“It is a progressive budget for Railways and especially for Mumbaikars. ₹577.5 crore (Central Government’s 50 percent share of 1,155 crore) has been allocated to Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) for various MUTP works. This will further give impetus to the ongoing work and new work planned by MRVC for Central and Western Railway. Suburban travellers can expect a lot of developmental work in days to come,” said Ravi Agarwal, chairman and managing director, MRVC.

Of the ₹577.5 crore, ₹2.5 crore has been allocated for 2021 pending work of augmentation of nine to 12 compartment local train services on the Harbour railway.

The fourth suburban railway corridor between Seawoods-Belapur and Uran has received ₹150 crore in the budget of 2022 and 2023, while ₹5 crore has been allocated to 28 km railway line connection Kalyan with Murbad via Ulhasnagar.

Railway officials have said that the decrease in the budget allocation could be due to the Covid-19 pandemic. “The situation which the country went through last year has been terrifying. We suffered losses in every department. This could be one of the reasons for less allocation this year,” said a senior railway official.

Meanwhile, the passenger associations are disappointed with the Union Budget. “We were expecting more budgetary allocation this year considering the upcoming municipal corporation election. It is a sheer disappointment as people from all over the country come to work in Mumbai and less money is allocated for suburban railway projects,” said Subhash Gupta, president, Rail Yatri Parishad.

The crucial suburban railway projects under MUTP include a new suburban railway corridor between Panvel and Karjat railway stations, Communication-Based Train Control System (CBTC), procurement of 47 air-conditioned (AC) local trains, quadrupling of the railway line between Virar and Dahanu railway station, elevated railway corridor between Airoli and Kalva railway stations and control on midsection trespassing.