BENGALURU/HUBBALLI : Karnataka has received a Budget allocation of Rs 7,748 crore for railways, with projects worth nearly Rs 52,950 crore currently under execution across the state, Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Monday.
He added that the proposed high-speed rail corridors connecting Bengaluru with Chennai and Hyderabad will operate at speeds of up to 350 kmph and run on elevated tracks.
A key highlight of the Union Budget is the approval of two new high-speed rail corridors -- Bengaluru-Chennai and Bengaluru-Hyderabad.
According to the minister, who addressed the media via video conference from New Delhi, the Bengaluru-Chennai journey time is expected to be reduced to about one hour and 13 minutes, while travel between Bengaluru and Hyderabad is projected to take just two hours.
Describing the projects as a “game changer”, Vaishnaw said the corridors would dramatically improve mobility for business travellers and professionals and the economy of the states.
The high-speed connectivity is expected to significantly benefit Bengaluru’s manufacturing, design and IT services sectors by enabling faster inter-city movement. The announcements also coincide with major reforms in the IT services sector, including clearer tax definitions, transport pricing norms and service categorisation, aimed at providing greater tax certainty and improving ease of doing business.
However, there is hardly any significant hike in the allocation for railways in Karnataka. The state has received a meagre 2.37 per cent increase compared to the budgetary allocation of the previous year. In the budget presented on Sunday, Karnataka has an allocation of Rs 7,748 crore for the year 2026-27, which is just Rs 184 crore more compared to Rs 7,564 crore of the previous year’s allocation.
However, addressing reporters in Bengaluru, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Ashutosh Kumar Singh claimed a nearly nine-fold increase in the budgetary allocation. He added that the average annual railway budget allocation for Karnataka had risen from Rs 835 crore during 2009-14 to Rs 7,748 crore in 2026-27, nearly a nine-fold increase.
This funding has translated into large-scale infrastructure development, including new track creation, station redevelopment and safety upgrades.
According to the DRM, under the Amrit Station Scheme, 61 stations in Karnataka are being redeveloped at a cost of Rs 2,110 crore. Since 2014, around 1,750 km of new tracks have been laid, and electrification has reached 97% of the network.
Safety systems, such as Kavach, are being implemented on 778 route kilometers in Bengaluru under phase one and 456 route kilometres are to be taken up in phase 2. Works are in progress or under tender for about 1,500 route kilometres and 3,610 route kilometres have been sanctioned, marking a major step towards safer train operations.