Focusing on updating the railway structure in India is expected to result in the country’s growth hitting nearly 7% and possibly overpowering China in the global economy landscape. The greater attention to the sector and the stepping up of the investment to nearly quadruple is anticipated to not only improve the regional  mobility, but to also guarantee creating jobs in the engineering and construction fields, as well as distributing capital.

With a 64,600 km long network, the Indian Railways System is one of the largest in the world but has for years been in need of serious modernisation. While in 1951 the country’s railroads were more than double the size of the ones in China, the world’s second largest economy’s government has rapidly caught up and with its high-speed lines is now way ahead of India. The 285% planned spending in the restoration of the railroad structure of the country in the next four years however is promised to fire up growth and result in considerable improvement in its entire economy as well as benefit both the population of India and the tourism sector.

Minister of Railways, Mr Suresh Prabhu, has said that the investment in the railroads sector in 2015-2016 has reached RS 70,000 crore (£7.2 billion), including funds coming from the Centre, as well as state-run undertakings. The combination of the Ministry of Finance’s support, earmarked funds and new innovative funding models (such as raising money through the Life Insurance Corp. of India or issuing ‘masala’ bonds to raise money from foreign investors) are predicted to contribute to up to 20% of total incremental economic growth through 2019.