Under the National Rail Plan, Indian Railways is planning to add four new bullet train corridors that will connect nine more cities to the high-speed rail network, The New Indian Express reported. The corridors to be proposed include a 618 km-long corridor between Hyderabad and Bangalore, an 855 km-long route between Nagpur and Varanasi, an 850 km-long way between Patna and Guwahati and a 190 km-long corridor connecting Amritsar, Pathankot and Jammu.
The new corridors will be proposed in addition to the eight that the railway ministry has already been working on under the NRP, a railway source told the newspaper. Moreover, the railway ministry is considering connecting all the major Indian cities to the high-speed rail network. As per the TNIE’s report, the sanctioned and proposed bullet train corridors will run along the national highways and expressways with the beautiful greenery enriching the view of passengers.
Currently, the first high-speed rail corridor in India, which will run between Mumbai to Ahmedabad and cover a distance of 508 km, is under construction and may take up to 2026-27, the Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told the Financial Express in an interview.
The estimated cost of the project is ₹1.1 lakh crore. The National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited, an agency to finance, construct and manage India’s bullet train projects, has prepared a detailed project report for the Mumbai – Ahmedabad project. However, for other approved corridors, the DPRs are still being prepared.
The eight already approved high-speed rail corridors include Mumbai – Ahmedabad, a 958 km-long corridor between Delhi and Varanasi that will also have a 123 km-long spur connecting Lucknow and Ayodhya, a 736 km-long corridor between Nagpur and Mumbai, an 886 km-long corridor between Delhi and Ahmedabad, a 480 km-long corridor between Delhi and Amritsar, a 711 km-long corridor between Mumbai and Hyderabad, a 760 km-long corridor between Varanasi and Howrah, and a 435 km-long high-speed corridor between Chennai and Mysore.
If everything goes as planned, the railway ministry may propose these four corridors this year.
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