The Ministry of Railway has decided to begin the civil construction work on the Mumbai—Ahmedabad Bullet Train project by next year so that it becomes operational by 2023. The special purpose vehicle (SPV) formed to implement the project met for the second time in a week on Monday. It will meet again on Tuesday to finalise the technical details including standardisation process for construction of tunneling, pillars, fencing and other requirement of the mega project.
“Our aim is to start the work at the earliest. It would take about seven years after the awarding of the contract for the project to be completed as a lot of new technologies would be used to construct the high-speed corridor,” said a senior Railway Ministry official involved with the bullet train project. The meeting saw the presence of top Railway Board officials and other stakeholders including the authorities from Japan which has offered to fund the project.
The SPV has been named National High Speed Rail Corporation limited comprising senior railway officials. The national transporter is in the process of appointing a CEO for the job.
For timely completion of the project, a joint committee has been formed under the vice-chairman of NITI Aayog with the secretaries of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Departments of Economic Affairs and Foreign Ministry as its members along with the Railway Board Chairman.
“It was decided that ground works should begin in 2017 and the operations should begin in 2023,” said a railway ministry official. Japan has offered a concessional loan of Rs97,636 crore to fund about 80 per cent of the project cost with a repayment period of 50 years beginning from the 16th year of operation at an interest rate of 0.1 per cent. Japan has offered a 15-year moratorium on loan, so revenue concerns for the Indian Railways will arise from the 16th year.
Sources said that the members were also informed that a IIM Ahemdabad report suggested that the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train will have to ferry 88,000-118,000 passengers per day, or undertake 100 trips daily, for the Railways to keep it financially viable. The total distance covered by the train will be 534 kilometres.