India, Feb. 2 -- Giving a fresh fillip to the country's rail infrastructure, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the development of seven new high-speed rail corridors to link major metropolitan cities and key economic centres through a faster, safer and more modern rail network. The budget also talked about establishing new dedicated freight corridors connecting West Bengal's Dangkuni in the east to Surat in the west.

"To promote environmentally sustainable passenger systems, we will develop seven high-speed rail corridors between cities as growth connectors, namely Mumbai to Pune, Pune to Hyderabad, Hyderabad to Bengaluru, Hyderabad to Chennai, and Chennai to Bengaluru. Delhi to Varanasi, Varanasi to Siliguri," the FM said. S...