NEW DELHI: Under pressure to step up capital expenditure to boost the economy, railways have finished the financial year 2015-16 with a record high capex of Rs 94,000 crore, an increase of Rs 37,000 crore over the previous year.Railways have set a target of Rs 1.5 lakh crore capital expenditure for the current fiscal. Happy with the performance of the railway ministry, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is believed to have assured an enhanced Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) of up to Rs 60,000 crore if it continues the trend.The Centre had earlier announced a GBS of Rs 40,000 crore for the railways in 2016-17, same as the year before. However, in November last, the finance ministry had slashed Rs 8,000 from the Rs 40,000 crore GBS, citing low spending by the railways in the first six months of the fiscal.“This came as a wake-up call for the ministry. The minister ( Suresh Prabhu ) had been prodding the system but it proved more slothful than he had imagined. It was then that he decided to crack the whip,” revealed a senior official at Rail Bhavan, preferring anonymity.Prabhu called a meeting of the railway top brass soon after the GBS was slashed and when the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) raised questions about the tardy progress of the work. Railway ministry was important in the Centre’s scheme of things to shore up public investment, create infrastructure and revive the economy. “All the board members and other senior officers were present at the meeting.When Prabhu asked them to step up the expenditure, one of the members said it may not be possible in the given economic scenario. The minister told him that if he couldn’t do it, he would find someone else who will. The minister was unyielding,” the railway ministry official disclosed. There was continuous monitoring of projects and pressure on the officers to perform.Weekly review meetings were held to find out where the members were spending money. “Finally, they all had to fall in line. Once things started moving, they also started innovating,” he explained. Moreover, some of the changes that Prabhu had earlier introduced, like delegating powers to general managers and changing financial allocation rules, started showing results.