Indian Railways will borrow Rs 20,000 crore from markets through its two companies IRFC and Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd for capital expenditure during 2016-17, a whopping 69 per cent rise over the current fiscal year’s revised estimate.

Market borrowing, as per the revised estimate for the current fiscal, has been pegged at about Rs 11,848 crore, lower than Rs 17,655 crore estimated earlier, according to the Railway Budget for 2016-17, which was tabled by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu in Parliament today.

Indian Railways Finance Corporation (IRFC) will raise Rs 19,760 crore in 2016-17 for investment in rolling stock and projects, while RVNL plans to raise Rs 240 crore.

During 2015-16, IRFC had raised Rs 11,591.66 crore, while RVNL mopped up Rs 255.90 crore from the market as per the revised estimate.

Besides, Railways is expecting investment through various partnership to the tune of Rs 18,340 crore

“With great pleasure, I wish to inform the House that bankable railway projects are now assured of funding and should be completed within the next 3-4 years,” Prabhu said while presenting the Rail Budget.

“We have introduced a new way of funding our projects through institutional financing. LIC has agreed to invest Rs 1.5 lakh crore over five years on extremely favourable terms.

We are also looking forward to setting up a fund with multilateral assistance for financing railway projects,” he said.

Railways is expecting to mobilise Rs 20,985 crore from institutional and multi-lateral funding agencies.

Commenting on Rail Budget, Finance Secretary Ratan P Watal said increased capital spending is good for Railways and the Railway Budget has a significant plan outlay.

“Whatever we had given in the current year, they have used it,” Watal said.

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