The interim budget for 2019 for fiscal 2019-20, saw the railway's sector getting a record allocation of Rs 1.6 lakh crore, up and above the previous allocation of Rs 1.48 lakh crore during budget of 2018-19.

The Interim Finance Minister, Piyush Goyal has announced capital support for the railways at Rs 64,587 crore for fiscal 2020 during his first budget speech.

During the earlier budget, the then Finance Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley had said most of the money allocated for railways would be spent on capacity expansion since at that time it was one of the major priority for the railway's sector. He had proposed a target to double the 18,000 km of lines. He also added that 36,000 km of rail track renewal had been targeted in the next year and as many as 4,267 unmanned railway crossings on broad gauge routes are planned to be eliminated in the next two years.

Keeping up with their earlier promise, the Railways has achieved its target of eliminating all the unmanned level crossings, stated Railways Minister Piyush Goyal who is also acting as interim finance minister.

The interim finance minister also noted that the Vande Bharat Express which is a part of the Make in India initiative will help to create more jobs and in the coming days more such trains are set to be manufactured across the Indian Railways Network.

In his budget speech, Mr Goyal noted that the operating ratio for fiscal 2019 - 2020 has improved and stands at 96.2% and for next fiscal, it is pegged at 95%.

Apart from this, in his Railways Budget 2019 speech, he stated that it was the safest year for Indian Railways. No railway fare hike was announced in the interim budget. The planned expenditure is up at 148% hike from its previous levels of 2014.

Breaking from the earlier tradition, the government of India in 2017, merged the announcement of Union Budget and Railways Budget which was earlier announced on different days.