The Centre on Friday said that in order to develop high speed rail network across the country, a separate corporation has been incorporated.
Railway Minister DV Sadanand Gowda said the objectives of the High Speed Rail Corporation (HSRC) is to conduct pre-feasibility studies and preparation of detailed project report (DPR) for the corridor. The HSRC will also go into preparation of technical parameters for High Speed Rail (HSR) system and model concession agreement.
Replying to BJP member Chandan Mitra’s query regarding the HSRC in Rajya Sabha, the Minister said skills of staff and officers will be developed at appropriate institutes in India and abroad through training programmes. The HSRC has been incorporated as a fully-owned subsidiary of Rail Vikas Nigam ltd (RVNl) which is a Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE) of Ministry of Railways.
“Studies will be conducted on Diamond Quadrilateral Network of High Speed Rail connecting four major metro and growth centres of the country i.e. New Delhi- Mumbai-Chennai-Kolkata- New Delhi. Mumbai- Ahmedabad sector, where a number of studies has been done, identified for further development for High Speed Trains. A provision of `100 crore has already been made in the Railway Budget this year,” Gowda said. The Minister also informed the House that the present composition of Board of Directors of HSRC is — chairman and three directors.
In a separate answer to Mitra’s query on introduction of new train between holy cities of Ujjain to Varanasi, Minister of State for Railway Manoj Sinha said in addition to three pairs of direct mail/express train services available between Ujjain and Varanasi, a new train viz. Ahmedabad-Patna Express (weekly) has been announced to benefit the pilgrims.
In regards to direct connectivity, Sinha informed the House that direct daily train service between Ujjain and Varanasi is not feasible, at present, due to operational
and resource constraints including terminal/maintenance constraints.