58 minutes travel time possible for Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed Bullet Train: JICA

58 minutes travel time possible for Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed Bullet Train: JICA

Surat (ST): A fresh energy has been infused into the high speed rail (HSR) corridor project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. A study group belonging to Japan International Cooperation (JICA), a Japanese government institution, visited the city last week. It indicated that HSR will be a separate dedicated corridor and that Surat city would have a new integrated railway station complex that would be managed on a commercial basis. Once the HSR is built in the next seven years, it would be possible for a bullet train to cover the distance between Mumbai and Ahmedabad in 58 minutes flat.

The HSR or bullet train project started in 2009. However, not much work was done in the past five years. The project has gathered speed after the recent visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Japan.

Municipal commissioner Milind Torwane met the two-member JICA team comprising Shingi Kakinaka and Gaurav Kohli. Torwane told, “The traditional rail route has many bends. In contrast, the new high speed rail corridor would be a straight line with tunnels at several places along the route.”

The JICA in its project outline paper of September 2014 says that it would take exactly 58 minutes to cover a distance of 266.3km between Mumbai to Surat. The distance of 500.6 km between Mumbai and Ahmedabad would be covered in 1.59 hour and 398.3km between Mumbai and Vadodara in 1.32 hour, the paper says.

The group has recommended that Surat HSR station be built at a new location a new location because of the expanding urban area while drawing up separate plans for Surat, Sabarmati and Ahmedabad HSR railway stations. Surat HSR complex would be an integrated complex having a hotel, a couple of restaurants and shopping complexes. The HSR station could come up near Kamrej on National Highway No 8, sources said.

“The group is also carrying out economic study of the region with possible traffic on the HSR route,” said an official of Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC).