Indian Railways to begin land acquisition for seven Bullet Train projects

New Delhi, India (Urban Transport News): India will soon have seven new routes for High-Speed Bullet Trains. To speed up the process, Indian Railways and National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) will shortly begin the process of land acquisition.

According to Indian Railways, NHAI will start the land acquisition process for the Integrated Development of Rail Transport Network to lay tracks for high-speed bullet trains along with greenfield expressway. Recently, in a meeting led by Union Minister, Nitin Gadkari, it was decided to acquire additional land and a 4-member committee was formed to take this process forward and work out the modalities for acquiring land and the sharing cost.

The blueprints of seven High-Speed Rail Corridors are being prepared by India Railways. The seven corridors on which the Indian Railways are planning to run Bullet trains are Delhi to Varanasi (via Noida, Agra and Lucknow); Varanasi to Howrah (via Patna); Delhi to Ahmedabad (via Jaipur and Udaipur); Delhi to Amritsar (via Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Jalandhar); Mumbai to Nagpur (via Nasik); Mumbai to Hyderabad (via Pune) and Chennai to Mysore (via Bangalore).

NHAI received details of all seven High-Speed Rail Corridors from the Railway board. The detailed project reports are being prepared for the corridors for running the Bullet trains. NHAI will soon appoint a nodal officer for this project for the integrated development of the Rail Transport Network in the country. V K Yadav, Chairman, Railway Board, said:

With the aim of modal shift in rail operations, the two big-ticket projects- Dedicated Freight Corridor and Bullet train project are going n in our country. Presently most of the infrastructure projects are facing delays in the country along with the paucity of workers and economic crisis.

The estimated cost of the dedicated Freight Corridor is Rs. 81,000 Crore, which is Railways' single largest developmental project presently underway.