Indian Railway would become major consumption sector for Compact Plywood, Industrial laminates and plywood flooring as there is higher focus on Indian Railway in its budget plan. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman spoke about the New Rail Plan that envisages a future-ready Indian Railways by 2030. As part of her Union Budget 2021 speech, Sitharaman announced Rs 1,10,055 crore for Indian Railways, out of this record sum of Rs 1,07,100 crore is for capital expenditure. Talking about the priorities of Indian Railways, FM spoke of the commissioning of the Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight Corridors.
According to Sitharaman, the priority is to bring down the logistics cost for industry to promote 'Make in India'. For the same, the Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight corridors will be commissioned by June 2022. A few sections of the dedicated freight corridors will be made on Public-Private Partnership mode. She also said that the dedicated freight corridor assets will be monetised for operations and maintenance once the corridors are commissioned
Piyush Goyal-led Indian Railways recently unveiled the National Rail Plan 2024 that gives broad indications on what Railway Budget 2021 would focus on. Indian Railways is looking to invite private sector participation in a big way for upgrading railway stations and also running trains on the network. Indian Railways is hoping to finalise the bids for the 150 private trains project by the first half of this year.
Government focus on Indian railway with a record sum for capital expenditure is good news for plywood and laminates producers, because it will give boost to the demand of compact plywood, chequered plywood, compact laminates and other industrial Laminates etc.