As highlighted by dna in its Monday edition, the Mumbai-Nagpur route was nowhere in the scheme of things. The route was first announced by the former Democratic Front government led by then chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.
The railway ministry on Monday announced via Twitter that it was studying several new high speed rail routes — railway lingo for bullet trains — in the country. Among them was the Mumbai-Pune route. The others were the Delhi-Agra-Lucknow-Varanasi-Patna, the Hyderabad-Chennai and the Chennai-Bangalore Thiruvanathapuram routes.
These lines are in addition to the Delhi-Chennai route which is being studied by Chinese firms and the Diamond Quadrilateral which includes Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Kolkata and Mumbai-Chennai routes. The contract to study the feasibility of the Diamond Quadrilateral routes were handed to three different consortia in mid-September.
As highlighted by dna in its Monday edition, the Mumbai-Nagpur route was nowhere in the scheme of things. The route was first announced by the former Democratic Front government led by then chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.
The announcement did not create much excitement among city-based officials saying the government and the railway ministry was spreading its bullet train announcements a little too thin. "There is skepticism with the Mumbai-Ahmedabad project especially pertaining to its route, its fare structure as well as how it will be financed. Moreover, you have chief minister Devendra Fadnavis requesting Nashik — totally out of route — after the alignment has been finalised. The new announcements are just tokenism because a HSR takes almost half a decade to go from drawing board to the first pile on the ground. It could be a decade before work starts on any of these projects," said an official.
Officials were also confused about the category of HSR lines some of these routes would fall. The railway ministry has divided its HSR category into 3 speed levels, 160kmph, 200kmph and 300 kmph, the last being touted as the bullet train.
"For instance how can the railway ministry think of running a 300-kmph train between Mumbai and Pune. Moreover, how do you get a passenger base to get the project to break even. It is very vague at the moment and possibly after the preliminary study, all the routes might be dropped," said the official.
Indian Railways High Speed Rail (HSR) dreams:
Category A: 300 kilometers per hour plus (also called bullet trains)
Comprises Mumbai-Ahmedabad HSR and Diamond Quadrilateral which includes Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Kolkata, Mumbai-Chennai and Delhi-Chennai routes
Category B: 200 kmph
Presently the Delhi-Chandigarh route is being studied for this category. Other routes will also be taken up shortly
Category C: 160 kmph
The Delhi-Agra route became part of this category when the first Oscillograph Car Run at a speed of 160kmph was undertaken successfully between the two cities on July 3, 2014. The journey was made in 99 minutes.
Firms helping India with its bullet train plans:
Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
The Tainjin-based Third Railway Survey and Design Institute Group Corporation which worked on the Beijing-Shanghai bullet train line
Systra France that studied the Oval Maidan-Churchgate-Virar elevated line on Western Railway
RITES, consultancy arm of the Indian Railways
INECO and TYPSA of Spain
Delhi-based ICT consultants
Gurgaon-based subsidiary of German firm Lahmeyer
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