NEW DELHI: The country’s first Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed bullet train project is yet to be completed, but the Ministry of Railways has decided to proceed ahead with seven new rail corridor projects, including one between New Delhi and Ayodhya, besides Prime Minister Modi’s high-profile constituency Varanasi.
“The way China has linked almost all its major cities with high-speed bullet trains, the Indian Railways has also decided to provide it to the country’s mega cities in the near future,” a senior railway official told this correspondent on condition of anonymity.
After the ongoing Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project, Mumbaikers will also have such a connectivity with the industrial city Nagpur. For this, a Detailed Project Report (DPR) covering the 766-km route is already under preparation by experts of the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL).
Railway sources said preliminary surveys on the feasibility of this bullet train corridor are complete. The Railway Ministry has also decided to connect Varanasi with New Delhi through high-speed bullet train as a priority project. Railway sources said that after the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train corridor, the New Delhi-Varanasi corridor would be given the top priority.
Sushma Gaur, additional general manager public relations, National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL), acknowledged that the Ministry of Railways has entrusted the NHSRCL with the tasks of preparing DPRs of seven new high-speed rail corridors projects. The 942-km long Delhi-Varanasi (including Ayodhya) is one of the seven new proposed high speed rail corridors on which the DPR is likely to be prepared soon.
She said the ministry has asked the NHSRCL to prepare DPRs for the proposed Mumbai-Nagpur (740 km), Delhi-Ahmedabad (886 km), Delhi-Amritsar (459 km), Mumbai-Hyderabad (711 km), Chennai-Mysore (435 km) and Varanasi-Howrah (760 km) high-speed rail corridors.
Proposed new corridors
* Distance is tentative