Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched railway projects worth Rs 41,000 crores and said India’s youth will be the real beneficiaries of Viksit Bharat (Developed India) and they have the maximum right to decide how Viksit Bharat will unfold.

Lakhs of people joined the Viksit Bharat Viksit Railways event from 500 railway stations and 1500 other venues. Mr Modi inaugurated 2,000 railway infrastructure projects virtually.

The Prime Minister said that the development projects of today will create employment and self-employment opportunities for lakhs of youth, while also benefiting those studying in schools.

He thanked the youth for bringing dreams of railways in Viksit Bharat to reality through various competitions and congratulated the winners.

“Whatever India does today, it does it with an unprecedented speed and scale. We dream big and work tirelessly to realise it. This resolve is visible in this Viksit Bharat Viksit Railway programme,” he said.

Mr Modi said he had launched 2000 projects, while the third term of his government is about to start in June. The speed and scale of work undertaken by the government already makes people wonder.

Few days back, he had launched dozens of institutions like IITs and IIMs. The revamping work of 500 stations in 300 districts of 27 States had started on Monday, he said.

The Prime Minister said the Gomti Nagar station has undergone a complete transformation. Work on 1,500 projects of road overbridges and underpasses has been taken up simultaneously. Projects worth Rs 40,000 crores are taking off in one go, he said.

For decades, he said, the Indian Railways was the victim of self-centered politics. Now it stands for ease of travel for Indian people, he said. Now, there is no more crying over losses in railways; now it is passing through a major phase of transformation. This has happened because India has moved from the 11th to the fifth place in the rank of world economies, he said.

Ten years back, the railways’ budget was Rs 45,000 crore. Today when the Indian economy occupies the fifth place in the world, the railways annual budget this year has reached Rs 2.50 lakh crore, he said. “Just imagine, when India occupies the third place among world economies, how large will be the scale of our capacity. This is why Modi is fully dedicated to make India the world’s third largest economy,” he said.

A new India has been taking shape in the last 10 years, especially in railways where the change is visible to anyone, he said. Amenities which could not be imagined 10 years back, have now become a reality. The Modernized Semi High-Speed trains like Vande Bharat, Amrit Bharat, NaMo Bharat, the fast pace of electrification of rail lines, and cleanliness in trains and on the station platforms are examples of this, he said.

Unmanned gates were commonplace in Indian Railways, whereas now overbridges and underbridges are ensuring uninterrupted and accident-free movement, he said. Modern facilities similar to those in airports are now being made available to the poor and middle classes at the railway stations, he said.

PM Modi said the money saved due to the absence of scams is being used in doubling the speed of laying new lines, taking rails to new areas from Jammu and Kashmir to the Northeast, and working on 2,500 km dedicated freight corridors. Every paisa of taxpayers’ money is being used for the welfare of the commuters. He said that there is a 50 per cent discount on every railway ticket by the government.

“Just as interest is earned on money deposited in banks, similarly every penny spent on infrastructure creates new sources of income and new employment,” the Prime Minister said. The new rail lines will create multiple employment opportunities, be for labourers or engineers.