Budget 2026 infrastructure spending: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman raised public capital expenditure (capex) to Rs 12.2 lakh crore for FY 2026–27, up from Rs 11.2 lakh crore allocated for the ongoing financial year, to boost infrastructure in the country. “Public capex has increased manifold from ₹2 lakh crore in FY2014-15 to an allocation of ₹11.2 lakh crore in BE 2025-26. In FY2026-27, I propose to increase it to ₹12.2 lakh crore to continue the momentum,” she said.

The finance minister also announced the setting up of dedicated REITs to accelerate the monetisation and recycling of significant real estate assets of CPSEs. She further unveiled an Infrastructure Risk Guarantee Fund aimed at providing prudently calibrated partial credit guarantees to lenders, in a move to boost infrastructure financing.

“During this past decade our Government has undertaken several initiatives for large-scale enhancement of public infrastructure including through new financing instruments such as Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InVITs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and institutions like NIIF and NABFID. We shall continue to focus on developing infrastructure in cities with over 5 lakh population (Tier II and Tier III), which have expanded to become growth centres,” the FM said.

FM Sitharaman also proposed to develop a new Dedicated Freight Corridors ((DFC) connecting Dankuni in East to Surat in West. The DFC network provides the backbone that enables new-generation multimodal logistics.  The finance minister also announced the development of 20 new waterways in the country.

“To promote environmentally sustainable movement of cargo, I propose to: a) Establish new Dedicated Freight Corridors connecting Dankuni in the East, to Surat in the West;

b) operationalise 20 new National Waterways (NW) over next 5 years, starting with NW-5 in Odisha to connect mineral rich areas of Talcher and Angul and industrial centres like Kalinga Nagar to the Ports of Paradeep and Dhamra,” Sitharaman said.