- Mysuru-Bengaluru-Chennai 435-km high-speed rail corridor (bullet train) to come up
- National Highways Authority of India to begin land acquisition; no delay despite COVID
New Delhi: The 435-km high-speed rail (bullet train) corridor between Mysuru-Bengaluru-Chennai will finally be a reality and the route is among the network of high-speed bullet trains on seven new routes. The Indian Railways along with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will begin the process of acquiring additional land.
According to reports from New Delhi, the NHAI will soon acquire land to lay tracks for high-speed trains along Greenfield expressways for integrated development of the rail transport network in the country. The decision to acquire additional land was taken during a recent meeting of a Group of Infrastructure Ministers led by Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari.
During the Infra Sector Group meeting, it was decided that the NHAI will take over land acquisition and a four-member committee (task force) was constituted to take this process forward. The task force will work out the modalities for acquiring land and sharing the cost.
As per reports, the Indian Railways plans to run bullet trains on 7 important new routes of the country. The seven high-speed rail corridors 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 Bengaluru.
The Railway Board has also written to the NHAI and given details of seven high-speed rail corridors for running bullet trains for which the detailed project reports are being prepared. NHAI has been asked to depute a nodal officer for this purpose for better integration of the mammoth planning exercise.
In a related development, Railway Board Chairman V.K. Yadav said that two big-ticket projects — the Dedicated Freight Corridor and the bullet train project — aimed at a modal shift in rail operations in the country, will not be delayed despite the Coronavirus crisis.
His statement comes at a time when most infrastructure projects in the country are facing delays due to the lockdown, coupled with the paucity of labour and the economic slump.
Once the project is implemented, the bullet train from Mysuru to Chennai via Bengaluru will take just two hours and 25 minutes as against the current seven hours in Shatabdi Express which is the fastest train on this route.
On a normal train journey, it takes over 10 hours to travel between the two cities. Shatabdi travels at a maximum speed of 110 kms per hour.
The bullet train will run at a maximum speed of 320 kilometres per hour and the actual distance from Mysuru to Chennai is over 485 kilometres while the bullet train corridor will be 435 kilometres. Going by the train speed, it can cover the 145-km distance from Mysuru to Bengaluru in just 45 minutes.
Are we ready for futuristic world? When the present railway system has trains running at average speed of 55KMPH, even a mere 145KM between Mysuru and Bengaluru having double track, electrification takes average travelling time of 3hrs. Here we have imagined a bullet train between Mysuru and Bengaluru which will cover the distance in 45 min. Whom are the railways fooling???
This is nothing but the continuation of Ache Din ka promise…as long as idiots are available to BELIEVE…such Comedy will go on and on…
We don’t want another gimmick. Just stop this and pay attention to health and NPA cleanup.
A.V. Prasanna,
I believe separate tracks will be built to accomodate high speed trains. These tracks will have less curves.
To acquire the land for this project, i would suggest one model which will be benefited both viz Land Owner and NHAI too.
my suggestion is as follows
(1) pl provide the compensation amount for their land in two ways……
(a) CASH credited in bank account.
(b) This amt will be invested in RBI bonds directly and the owner will get regular interest amt to him
(2) The other option is the owner will get the benefit in terms of PROFIT sharing in the said project and he wont gate any cash in hand
He may be offered certain discount in the travel ticket
so that he will be emotionally attached to this project too.
this will be WIN.. WIN situation to both.
Bullet trains?!! Where is the priority, when over 500 million of Indians are struggling to have at least a meal a day, living in shanty towns, defecation at every street corners, acute water shortage, street lights are switched on manually, and the switch boxes are open with wires hanging out, drinking water polluted with bacteria and the list grows in this third world country.
Yes, Japanese style bullet trains, are a must!!
If the road is good you can cover 175 km in 1 hour, so 145 km can be covered in 49 minutes .
Where is a good road in India??
Even NH is not good to travel