In her budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a passing reference to two mass transport systems — MetroLite and MetroNeo. The FM said these low-cost technologies would be deployed in metro rail systems to be built in tier-2 cities as well as in the outskirts of tier-1 cities.

Amid dozens of big budget announcements from taxation to capital expenditure, such a reference would naturally get lost. But it was no small statement. Sample this: There are 702 km of metro lines.

+INFO: The Economic Times