Patna: Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday said the Centre has allocated a record railway budget of more than Rs10,000 crore for developing rail infrastructure in Bihar during the current financial year.Addressing functions in Patna and Saran districts, Vaishnaw said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given Bihar its highest-ever allocation for railway’s development. He said projects worth around Rs1.15 lakh crore are currently under implementation across the state, while the Centre is planning to introduce 200 new trains for Bihar over the next seven to eight years.Vaishnaw said Bihar has received 11 Amrit Bharat trains and 14 Vande Bharat trains in recent years. He added that bullet train connectivity would be introduced in the coming years on the Delhi-Lucknow, Lucknow-Varanasi, Varanasi-Patna and Patna-Siliguri corridors. Once operational, the bullet train would reduce travel time between Delhi and Patna to 4 hours and 41 minutes, he said.The minister also claimed that 2,034 km of new railway tracks had been laid in Bihar in the last 12 years under the leadership of PM Modi, adding that this was more than the total rail network of a country such as Malaysia.Chief minister Samrat Choudhary also addressed the functions held in Patna and Saran districts. Before leaving for Chhapra railway station in Saran with Choudhary, Vaishnaw, who also holds the electronics and information technology portfolio, visited the Software Technology Parks of India-Patna Incubation Facility.At the STPI facility, Vaishnaw interacted with innovators, startup founders, young entrepreneurs and technology professionals. He reviewed live product demonstrations by STPI incubators and startups and appreciated the solutions being developed in emerging technology sectors. He said the govt was committed to promoting innovation, entrepreneurship and technology-led growth in Bihar.Vaishnaw stressed the need to strengthen India’s startup and innovation ecosystem so that entrepreneurs can convert ideas into scalable products and globally competitive enterprises. He encouraged young innovators to use technology to solve real-world challenges and create new opportunities for growth.Referring to the global semiconductor sector, the minister said the rapidly growing industry presents a major opportunity for India. He assured support for establishing world-class semiconductor design facilities in leading engineering institutions in Bihar.Speaking on the occasion, Choudhary said Bihar would be developed in such a way that the state would be known for industry in the next five years. He said water and population, earlier seen as challenges for Bihar, were now being put to productive use.He urged Bihar’s youth to create employment opportunities through startups and said the govt would provide full support. Choudhary said Bihar is the land of knowledge and the govt is creating a system in which students can study and pursue higher education within the state. He also said a “Bihar Tech” portal would be created for startups and industry to accelerate development.
