While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has started its third tenure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dream project of Bullet Train in India is nowhere to be finished. As per Dainik Bhasker report, it is uncertain when the bullet train will run on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route. Apart from this, the status of 6 bullet train routes is even more uncertain, and this includes the Delhi-Amritsar corridor i.e. Punjab Bullet Train.
As per the reports, work on these corridors has not progressed beyond the DPR and feasibility report. Work is going on rapidly on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route. The government's target is that the bullet train will run on this route from 2026. However, due to technical reasons, the bullet train will not run right now. For this, people will have to wait till 2030. There are preparations to run high-speed Vande Bharat trains from 2026.
'Vande Bharat racing past Bullet Train'
Vande Bharat's speed will be 250 km/h. The speed of the existing Vande Bharat trains is 180 km/h. For this, the process of making two pairs of Vande Bharat trains with new technology has started. The speed of the bullet train is up to 350 km per hour, but it will also be run in the country at a speed of up to 250 km/h.
What is the estimate of the cost and income of the bullet train project?
A Railway Board official was quoted by the news daily saying that it is not appropriate to look at this project only in terms of the income from passenger fares. Its real aspect is that its operation will lead to a big boom in the economic activities of the cities or towns on this route. Talking about the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train route, new bases for investment will be created in two states, Palghar in Maharashtra and Valsad in Gujarat. Due to the high speed rail corridor, new production hubs, new townships, logistics centers, industrial units etc will open. This will give a tremendous boost to economic activities. There will be a boom in cement and steel manufacturing.
The cost of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route is 1 lakh crore
About Rs 1 lakh crore is estimated to be spent on this project. Japan is giving a loan of Rs 88 thousand crore at an interest rate of 0.1%. The loan is for 50 years, in which there is no compulsion to pay the principal or interest for 15 years. That is, the liability will start after 15 years.
The report further suggests that the Finance Ministry and the Finance Department of the Railways itself are cautious that the project should not become a financial burden. The concern is that France has to give huge subsidies for the Paris-Lyon bullet train.
In Taiwan, the government had to give a relief package to recover the bullet project from a loss of 1 billion dollars. After assessing the cost of the bullet train, Argentina has planned to prepare a high-speed train system in its place.
Six Bullet Train Projects of India
Apart from Mumbai-Ahmedabad, the other 6 bullet train routes are..
- Delhi-Amritsar
- Howrah-Banaras-Patna
- Delhi-Agra-Lucknow-Banaras
- Delhi-Jaipur-Udaipur-Ahmedabad
- Mumbai-Nashik-Nagpur
- Mumbai-Hyderabad.
Punjab Bullet Train Update
The DPR of Howrah-Banaras-Patna and Delhi-Amritsar has started. Work is ongoing on the feasibility report of the remaining four routes. The report of Delhi-Banaras was rejected because there were many turns on the 180-degree stretch. Only after both reports are received, it can be assessed whether there is a need to run bullet trains on these routes or not.
The DPR contains the account of the project's progress and expenses. For the unversed, a feasibility report is a document in which technical, financial, legal, and commercial feasibility is examined.