The Mumbai-Ahmedabad 508-kilometer High-Speed “Bullet Train,” is progressing well, said Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who visited the site last week.
Vaishnaw had said that the country’s first bullet train will be operational by 2026.
While Vaishnaw mentioned that good progress was being made, there has been a slight delay in project implementation, which has resulted in an increase in the expected cost of the nation’s first “high-speed rail” to exceed Rs 1.6 lakh crore, GST excluded, from Rs 1.08 lakh crore in the 2015 feasibility study.
The delay is said to be the result of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as land acquisition issues.
The price increase is unavoidable due to increasing land acquisition prices, as well as increased prices of cement, steel, and other raw material prices, it added.
According to reports only in Dadra and Nagar Haveli 100 percent land has been bought.
The land acquisition in Gujarat is around 98.9 percent, it is just about 73 percent in Maharashtra. Meanwhile, the Centre has maintained that the project’s delay is primarily due to delays in land acquisition in Maharashtra.
The ambitious 508-kilometer-long Ahmedabad-Mumbai High-Speed Rail Project was started on September 14, 2017 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his former Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, with an initial date of completion 2022.