Nirmala Sitharaman announces Rs 100 lakh crore for infrastructure in next 5 years

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her maiden Budget speech on Friday, announced Rs 100 lakh crore will be invested in infrastructure in the next five years.

Nirmala Sitharaman also said that an expert committee will be set up to recommend structure of financing for the same.

Railway infrastructure would need an investment of Rs 50 lakh crore between 2018 and 2030, Nirmala Sitharaman said.

Nirmala Sitharaman proposed that a public private partnership (PPP) be used to unleash faster development and delivery of passenger freight services for railway projects to boost the connectivity.

"Railways will be encouraged to invest in suburban railways through special purpose vehicles (SPVs) and enhance metro rail network through PPPs," Nirmala Sitharaman said.

The finance minister also said that the Union government has approved rail and metro projects for 300 km across the country.

Presenting the the first Budget of the Modi 2.0 government, Nirmala Sitharaman said 657 km of metro rail network has become operational across country while railway infrastructure will need Rs 50 lakh crore investment till 2030.

Saying that schemes such as Bharat Mala, Sagarmala and UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) are bridging rural urban divide and improving transport infrastructure, Nirmala Sitharaman said, "Public private partnership to be unleased to develop rail infrastructure".

In the interim budget that was presented by Piyush Goyal in February before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Narendra Modi government had proposed to allocate Rs 48,032 crore for urban development.

The allocation made by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the full 2019 Budget is Rs 100 lakh which is way more than the allocation made in the interim budget 2019.

In comparison to the present budget, the Budget 2018-19 allocated Rs 41,765 crore for urban development. But the figure was increased to Rs 42,965 crore in the revised estimates for financial year 2018-19.

The Union budget for 2018-19 was presented by the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.