French technical know-how for Railways’ high-speed corridors

France will extend its technical expertise to India for building high-speed rail corridors in the country.

And an agreement was signed in this regard by the two sides underwhich New Delhi and Paris would jointly carry out ‘operations

and development’ feasibility project on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-speed Rail, which will be funded by the French government.

The Union Railway Ministry and the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF)-- the French national railways -- signed the agreeement in the presence of visiting French President Francois Hollande. And it is expected to give a fillip to the technical cooperation between the two countries.

The SNCF currently runs France’s high-speed TGV rail(TGV), which routinely touches a speed of 320 kmph. In fact, the firm had helped governments across the world to set up high-speed rail services.

The Railway officials said France would help them in running high-speed and suburban trains, renovation and operations of the stations and modernisation of the current operations and infrastructure. The French help for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor followed the new agreement signed by the two sides on sharing the tech knowhow. The project will be funded by SNCF with the backing of the French Finance Ministry. The 534-kmMumbai-Ahmedabad stretch is one of the six corridors where the Railways is conducting studies to launch Bullet trains.