Bullet trains in India

A public-private partnership is favoured for the project and Rs 100 crore will be set aside to develop its infrastructure

India’s Railway Minister DV Sadananda Gowda, while presenting the Union Rail Budget, announced a plan of introducing bullet trains. These high-speed trains are expected to connect major metros and growth centres in the country, with the first such service to be launched on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route. Currently, the fastest train between the two cities is the Shatabdi Express. It takes around seven hours to cover this journey of 534 km.

According to media reports, a bullet train will cover this distance in two hours, running at high speeds peaking at 320 kmph. It will not have more than five station stops. The location in Ahmedabad hasn’t yet been finalised, but its station in Mumbai will most probably be located in the commercial district of Bandra Kurla Complex.

Other services of such trains include the Delhi- Agra, Delhi-Chandigarh, Mysore-Bangalore- Chennai, Mumbai-Goa and Hyderabad-Secunderabad routes. The Rail Ministry says it favours a public-private partnership for the project and will set aside Rs 100 crore to develop the infrastructure needed for these trains.

The promise of a high-speed network was made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his General Election campaign. He had spoken of his dream of a ‘diamond quadrilateral ’ of bullet trains linking India’s four major cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai.

Earlier this month, in a test ride to upgrade the country’s creaky rail network, a Delhi- Agra train set a new national speed record by hitting 160 kmph, 10 kmph faster than the previous record. The train did the 200 km stretch between the two cities in about 90 minutes. But the proposed bullet trains will be in an entirely new class altogether.

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