On 1st February, Saturday, India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Union Budget 2025 in the Lok Sabha. The finance minister made announcements regarding agriculture, infrastructure, health, education and income tax relief.
Finance minister Sitharaman presenting the Budget Session said, “The development track record of the past 10 years and structural reforms have drawn global attention. Confidence in India’s capability and potential has only grown in this period. In this Budget, the proposed development measures span 10 broad areas, focussing on the poor, youth, farmers, and women.”
However, the Union Budget didn’t mention any major reform for the railway sector. It did not unveil any specific announcements for the railway stocks as well. The railways were not mentioned at all in her historic Budget speech.
Following this, as per CNBC, India's state-run and private railway-linked stocks such as IRFC Ltd., RVNL Ltd., IRCON International Ltd., RailTel Ltd. and IRCTC Ltd. have seen a sharp drop of up to 6%.
As per the union budget 2025-26, the allocation to the railways sector has remained unchanged for the railways sector at Rs 2.55 lakh crore for financial year 2026. Previously, the allocation for financial year 2025 was also at Rs 2.55 lakh crore. Notably, railway stocks had went down after Union interim Budget 2024-2025 as well.
As per Mint, the railway stocks have witnessed a decline. Texmaco Rail, Rail Vikas Nigam (RVNL) and Ircon International have emerged as the worst-performing stocks in the railway pack, declining over 7% each.
However, significant announcements were made for Aviation sector as FM Sitharaman stated that the UDAN scheme has benefited a total of 1.5 crore middle-class individuals. It has connected 88 airports and made 619 routes operational as well.
Following this, she announced that a modified UDAN scheme will be launched in order to engage more 120 new destinations. It will aim to carry 4 crore additional passengers over the next 10 years.