Bullet Train in India to Soon Become a Reality

Far gone are the days when we all have to wait eagerly for the vision of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the Bullet Train tracks to set up in the Indian territories.

It was every Indian's dream to travel at a world-class speed between Indian cities and reduce the amount of time required to head towards the workplace or for tourism also. Our Prime Minister led a vision about how Indians will avail facilities of a bullet train at the price of flight tickets or even less than it.

Tentative Dates


It was in 2016, the Prime Minister announced this and it was thought that the initial launch date for the project to start was 2023 with the help of assistance from Japan.

However, with advanced technology and rapid response from the government agencies, what comes a piece of positive news is that we are expecting this target to be completed by the 15th of August 2022 itself.


Latest Information


What comes with the latest report is that both the government of the states have agreed on allowing the contractor Larsen and Turbo, which placed the lowest bid of $3.3 billion for a track of 508 kilometers between two megacities of Ahmedabad in Gujarat and Mumbai in Maharashtra. 

Due to this lowest bid, the government allowed Larsen and Turbo to start working on a 237-kilometer track initially.


The Bidders 

As we all know, Larsen and Turbo is going to work on this project, but for your understanding, there were a total of 4 bidders for this project.

They were all Indian companies actually namely:

1. Afcons Infrastructure
2. NCC Tata project J. Kumar Infra Projects-HSR consortium and
3. IRCON International

What consists of the project portion is between the cities of Vapi and Vadodara comprising of four elevated halts or stations, one train Depot for maintenance, and an 88-kilometer long track.


What officials say? 

As per the recent statement from the Indian Ministry of Railways, "As in other economic sectors, the government has decided to pursue the idea of self-reliance and encourage Indian companies in all the high-speed projects."

As per the recent statement of Larsen & Toubro's railway construction business segment, it says- "Larsen and Turbo have played a lead role in constructing India’s 'first monorail system' at Mumbai and also brings in the extensive experience of working on large scale underground rail infrastructure.


The Make in India Initiative


What is more interesting to know is the bidding price by Japanese companies for designing engineering and construction of the projects were 'too high' for the government project owners to continue with, so it was under the initiative of "Make in India", only national companies were allowed by National High-Speed Rail Corp. Ltd.

There are also some kind of investments and loans that are being taken from Japanese firms respectively off a major amount of dollar 13.72 billion will be a soft loan from a firm known as Japan International Cooperation Agency, which is a government-funded agency that will charge an interest rate of 0.1% per year.

The other $17 billion costings are provided by the government itself for 8 high-speed projects.

The Other Projects Planned

Of the total 8 projects in which Ahmedabad- Mumbai corridor is a part, the other 7 projects include connecting the cities of:

• Mumbai-Nagpur
• Chennai-Mysore
• Mumbai-Hyderabad
• Delhi-Ahmedabad
• Delhi-Amritsar
• Varanasi-Kolkata
• Delhi-Varanasi

China’s habit of Betrayal 

After the recent clashes and long term backstabbing by Chinese firms, the government is also keeping a space for other international builders to keep their bid for the coaches & high-speed rail tracks for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor, keeping and shooing off the Chinese away from the project.

Of course for national concerns and national emotions China was shooed off from the project, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi held discussions with both former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping for assistance in the high-speed rail projects.


The Statistics

What statistics are saying is that the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed corridor is expected to reduce the time required for traveling to less than 2 hours which is too little as compared to the present time of more than 7 hours connecting both the cities.

The analysis and experimentation work for the project started back in 2010 with a study conducted by the French consulting firm Systra, Rail India Technical and Economic Service, and Italy’s ITALFER.

They were heading forward with approximately 26.9 million passengers using the high-speed rail line by 2021 and 104 million passengers in near future in 2041.


The Challenges Ahead 


For every positive thing lies some negative points also, and for this mega real connectivity project, there is a serious negative concern about the 2000 hectares of farmers' land in the Indian state Maharashtra and Gujarat.

Opposition parties were questioning about the land of farmers and other collaboration doubts making it challenging to continue with the project.'

Also one of the major challenges is coming in the terms of acquiring new land for the project. 

As per the reports, in one district called Nivasare, what is required to acquire 94 hectares of land but the firm has managed to acquire only 6 hectares of land from the farmers despite the strong support from the government agencies.

But the fact remains with the Hindi proverb, "You have to lose something to gain something." As per the reports only, 20% of the required land has been acquired till now.


Written by - SurajPatra

Edited by - RudranshKhurana