Title - Railways to set up corporation to focus on bullet train project

New Delhi: Aiming to expedite the ambitious high speed corridor project, the government has decided to set up a corporation which will exclusively deal with aspects like its tendering process and execution.The National High Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRC) will be constituted shortly and focus on execution of the bullet train project, including tendering, pre-feasibility study and awarding contracts, among others, Railway sources here said.The corporation will comprise four members, all railway officials, they added. According to Railway officials, among the eight upcoming high speed rail corridors, the one between Mumbai-Ahmedabad will be taken up on priority.The 492-km-long Mumbai-Ahmedabad rail route will see its first bullet train, with a speed of 300 km per hour, which is expected to reduce the travel time drastically between the two financially strong cities to a mere two and a half hours from seven hours by Duronto, the fastest train at present.The high speed corridors, considered to be a flagship infrastructure project, has got the nod from the Prime Minister's Office, which has announced a roadmap for implementation of the project.Besides the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route, the seven other high speed corridors which have got in-principle approval are Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar, Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Hyderabad- Dornakal-Vijayawada-Chennai, Howrah-Haldia, Chennai-Bangalore- Coimbatore-Trivandrum, Delhi-Agra-Lucknow-Allahabad-Patna and Delhi-Jaipur-Ajmer-Jodhpur.

Except Delhi-Amritsar and Delhi-Jodhpur, pre-feasibility study has been undertaken for all the corridors.

The PMO has also decided to set up a project steering group consisting of Chairman Railway Board as Chairman and Secretary (DEA), Secretary (Planning), Member (Mechanical), Member (Engineering) and Member (Electrical) as members to monitor the project closely.