AA Edit | Building Growth, Brick By Brick
In addition to the ongoing Mumbai and Ahmedabad bullet train project and the Delhi-Ahemabad high-speed project, the newly announced seven high-speed rail corridors will connect the most productive regions of the country, namely Delhi, Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Mumbai and Pune (Maharashtra), Bengaluru (Karnataka), Hyderabad (Telangana), and Chennai (Tamil Nadu)
On the surface, the Union Budget 2026–27 may appear to be uninspiring, without any great headline-making initiatives. However, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman sought to boost the country’s economic growth through infrastructure spending. Across railways, roads, energy, and cities, the government has opted for a broad, multi-modal infrastructure push that seeks to compress distance, cut carbon and unclog long-standing logistical bottlenecks.
The centrepiece of her strategy is railways, with a record capital outlay of Rs 2.78 lakh crore. In addition to the ongoing Mumbai and Ahmedabad bullet train project and the Delhi-Ahemabad high-speed project, the newly announced seven high-speed rail corridors will connect the most productive regions of the country, namely Delhi, Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Mumbai and Pune (Maharashtra), Bengaluru (Karnataka), Hyderabad (Telangana), and Chennai (Tamil Nadu). The combined GDP of these seven cities is $1 trillion, or one-fourth of the country’s economic output, and faster transport connecting these cities will have a multiplier effect on the country’s economy.
The East-West Freight Corridor — though understated in official announcements — holds great promise. It will cut short the time taken for freight transport from the Middle East to mainland Southeast Asia by 24 days. Instead of opting for sea transport alone, the East-West Freight Corridor could connect the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, offering an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative’s illegal highway project connecting China and Pakistan through Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.
Similarly, the Rs 20,000-crore Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) project is a significant initiative to ramp up the country’s energy storage capacities, which will allow the country to fast-track the adoption of clean energy.
The push for city economic regions will help in the planned transformation of tier-2 and tier-3 cities, boosting the country’s economic growth as well as providing better living conditions for people.