Transforming cities and rail travel

THE UNION BUDGET'S focus on infrastructure has two dominant themes—rejuvenating cities and high-speed rail (HSR).

- VINAYAK CHATTERJEE

The finance minister spoke at length to outline the attention to tier-I and -III cities (population below 5 lakh) and a series of measures for their rejuvenation. She said, “This Budget aims to further amplify the potential of cities to deliver the economic power of agglomerations by mapping City Economic Regions (CER) based on their specific growth drivers. An allocation of ₹5,000 crore per CER over five years is proposed for implementing their plans.” Municipal bonds too have been incentivised with an attractive package of ₹100 crore for a single-bond issue greater than ₹1,000 crore. Smaller issue sizes continue to be incentivised under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation.

The other dominant area was the announcement of seven HSR corridors (Mumbai-Pune, Pune-Hyderabad, Hyderabad-Bengaluru, Hyderabad-Chennai, Chennai-Bengaluru, Delhi-Varanasi, and Varanasi-Siliguri). Discussed for over half-a-decade, the announcement now grabs the railway bull by the horns and forces the ministry to transform how India travels.