Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced seven high-speed rail corridors in the Union Budget 2026-27: Mumbai-Pune, Pune-Hyderabad, Chennai-Bengaluru, Chennai-Hyderabad, Hyderabad-Bengaluru, Delhi-Varanasi and Varanasi-Siliguri. Three of them touch Hyderabad and two start from Chennai. Spanning about 4,000 km at an outlay of ₹16 lakh crore, they will be built by the National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited with trains running at a minimum of 230 km/h. Travel time between Chennai and Bengaluru is expected to fall to 1.5 hours and Chennai-Hyderabad to 2 hours 55 minutes. A new dedicated freight corridor from Dankuni (West Bengal) to Surat (Gujarat) was also announced.