Monday, April 13, 2015

Who will give India the Bullet Trains – China or Japan or both?


Delhi-Chennai bullet train - on 27 November 2014, a news report in thehindu.com indicated that China was hoping to bag the contract of a possible bullet-train deal with India along the 1,754-Km Delhi-Chennai high speed rail corridor.
In the report, it was also revealed that Japan also had its eyes on the market and had pledged to offer India a more attractive funding scheme. Moreover, based on a report there were apprehensions that the Sino-Indian partnership in the field of high-speed rail was not well-received by the Indian public.
An Indian delegation had gone to China to work out the “terms of reference” of the feasibility study. This would be undertaken by the Chinese authorities to establish a high-speed rail corridor between Delhi and Chennai. Once completed, it would reduce travel time between Delhi and Chennai to around 6 hours.
Of course, mere finalization of the study was no guarantee that the Delhi-Chennai corridor high-speed rail contract would go to a Chinese company.
Mumbai- Ahmedabad bullet train – a strong contender for this sector appears to be Japan. As reported in asia.nikkei.com dated 5 March 2015, its shinkansen bullet train technology is the leading candidate for the 500-Km bullet train that would connect the western city of Mumbai to Ahmedabad.
The Indian and Japanese governments had initiated a joint feasibility study in late 2013 before the Modi government came to power in 2014 and a final report is to be released in July 2015. As indicated by a top official in India's Ministry of Railways, Japan's technology is the best in the world and that India is hopeful of linking up with Japan to work on this project.
On a rough estimate, this link will cost 700-800 billion rupees ($11.3 billion to $12.9 billion) and would include 12 stations to be built along the route. The train is expected to have a top speed of 320-Kmph and would drastically travel time to around two and a half hours from the eight hours it takes now.

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