An IIM-Ahmedabad study revealed said that the proposed bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad would have to undertake 100 trips daily to remain financially viable.
The report is titled, "Dedicated High-Speed Railway (HSR) Networks in India: Issues in Development,".
The report also found out that if the Railways set the ticket price at Rs 1500 per person for a 300-km drive, then fifteen years after the operation it will have to ferry between 88,000 and 110,000 passengers every day to ensure that it repays the loans with interest on time.
The 508-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail Project would be made in an estimated cost of Rs 1,10,000 crore with a loan of Rs 88,000 crore from Japan. The interest on this loan would be as low as 0.1%.
The loan would be given back within 50 years. Piyush Goyal told reporters that the grace period of another 15 years has also been given by Japan.
The paper has been jointly authored by faculty members G Raghuram, professor of the institute's Public Systems Group, and Prashanth Udayakumar.
"So if the Railways earn Rs 100 revenue, Rs 20 or Rs 40 will go for maintenance, and remaining surplus money will go for the cash payment of loan with interest. Now, to cover the loan with operating cost in two scenarios, we consider passengers travelling an average distance of 300 kilometres. In this case, we will need 88,000-118,000 passengers respectively for both the scenarios," Raghuram said.
At present, the various media report stated that the proposed train would make 70 Ahmedabad-Mumbai rides.
Reportedly, a total of 24 high-speed trains will be imported from Japan and then rest of the rakes will be manufactured in India. Also, the officials stated that the reason behind giving this project to Japan is that the nations has been running the trains since many years without a single accident that ever happened on its bullet trains.
(With inputs from PTI)
