JICA submits Final Report of Ahmedabad-Mumbai Highspeed Rail Corridor at a Projected Cost of Rs.1 Lakh Crore

JICA submits Final Report of Ahmedabad-Mumbai Highspeed Rail Corridor at a Projected Cost of Rs.1 Lakh Crore

Ahmedabad: The final report of the feasibility study of the proposed Ahmedabad-Mumbai high speed rail corridor by Japan International Cooperation Agency has pegged the cost at about Rs 1 lakh crore.

The stretch is about 505 km long for which French Rail Corporation had already submitted a business viability study report in 2014.

The corridor, if undertaken, would cut the travel time from current seven hours to two hours, besides spurring industrialisation and urbanisation on the line. Japanese ambassador to India Takeshi Yagi led the official JICA delegation, which submitted the report to railway minister Suresh Prabhu on Monday.

The report estimates that the bullet train, running over 300 km per hour, will cost Rs 988,050 million.

It has also apparently suggested that its fare would be higher than that of a first AC coach seat of Rajdhani to make it commercially viable. It states it would take six years to complete the construction of the corridor and another year to operationalise it.

The ministry of railways did not officially comment on the report, while only maintaining that it has been submitted. It will now study the report for further action.

The report claims that there could be a footfall of 40,000 passengers a day by the time the corridor is operationalised and with fare at one and a half time of the Rajdhanis, it could be commercially viable as well.

The ministry of railways did not officially comment on the report, while only maintaining that it has been submitted. The ministry will now study the report for further action.

Meanwhile, the French Rail Corporation had noted in its report that the bullet train project could not be executed in public-private-partnership mode, which incidentally is the first choice of the government. The report had argued that such projects world over had been built by the government. With Railways financially stressed and focus of the NDA government more on capacity augmentation, there appears a big question mark if it would seriously pursue the dream bullet train project. The NDA government appears more keen for semi-high corridors, which would not incur cost as estimated for bullet trains.