7 high-speed rail corridors to link India's growth cities
What's the story
In her ninth consecutive Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has proposed seven high-speed rail corridors to serve as "growth connectors." These routes are designed to link Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities with major urban centers, positioning the railway network as a fast, environmentally sustainable alternative to short-haul air travel and road transport.
Key routes
Corridors aimed at boosting regional connectivity
The FM explicitly named the seven corridors aimed at boosting regional connectivity: Mumbai-Pune, Pune-Hyderabad, Hyderabad-Bengaluru, Hyderabad-Chennai, Chennai-Bengaluru, Delhi-Varanasi, and Varanasi-Siliguri. These routes integrate the Southern tech belt, the Hindi heartland, and the strategic gateway to the Northeast. To support these massive projects, the government has hiked the Capital Expenditure (Capex) to ₹12.2 lakh crore for FY27.