The hurdles delaying India's high-speed trains from running on fast track

The speed of Vande Bharat trains has been restricted to 160 kmph for now as the Railways has to upgrade the tracks and also build fences on both sides of the tracks to prevent trespassing

The pace of India’s journey to put on track a high-speed rail, or bullet train, seems to have slowed down with land acquisition for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad project failing to meet yet another deadline last week. Maharashtra Chief minister Eknath Shinde had set a September 30 deadline for completing the land acquisition.

At the same time, Kerala government’s ambitious semi-high-speed SilverLine or K-Rail project is also in a limbo due to widespread protests. Last week, the Railways ministry also said that the state is yet to submit several technical documents.

Here’s an assessment of the status of planned and ongoing high-speed and semi-high-speed rail projects in India. Semi-high-speed trains are those that travel at speeds of 160-200 kmph, while bullet or high-speed trains travel at speeds of above 300 kmph.

Bullet trains 

The Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project will cover a stretch of 508.17 km and is estimated to cost Rs 1.08 trillion – around Rs 213 crore per km. Earlier, the project was to be commissioned by December 2023; the deadline has now been extended, with the first phase to be completed by 2026.  

So far, 90-95 per cent of the 1396-hectare (ha) needed for the project has been acquired. The pandemic and differences between the central and the erstwhile Maha Vikas Aghadi governments had earlier affected the pace of land acquisition.

The project became one of the top priorities of the Shinde government, which took charge in July 2022, with the state regularly monitoring its progress. Civil works (including construction of stations, bridges, viaducts, maintenance depots, and tunnels) had already started on a 352-km stretch in Gujarat and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. The three-year delay in execution is expected to increase the planned project cost.

The high-speed rail will cover 155.76 km in Maharashtra (7.04 km in Mumbai sub-urban, 39.66 km in Thane district and 109.06 km in Palghar district); 4.3 km in the Union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli; and 348.04 km in Gujarat. The 12 planned stations include Mumbai, Thane, Virar and Boisar in Maharashtra; and Vapi, Bilimora, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand, Ahmedabad and Sabarmati in Gujarat.

Besides the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project, seven new bullet train projects worth around Rs 10 trillion are in various stages of planning. The newly planned routes include Delhi-Varanasi (865 km), Mumbai-Nagpur (753 km), Delhi-Ahmedabad (886 km), Chennai-Bengaluru (around 350 km), Delhi-Chandigarh (close to 300 km), Mumbai-Hyderabad (711 km) and Varanasi-Howrah (760 km). The final sanction for these new projects will depend on the outcome of a detailed project report, techno-economic feasibility, availability of resources and financing options.

Semi-high-speed rail

At present, three semi-high-speed Vande Bharat trains are running in India along the New Delhi-Varanasi, New Delhi-Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra and Ahmedabad-Mumbai route. The third one was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week.

In addition to this, the government has a target of bringing in 475 new Vande Bharat trains by 2024-25 – 75 of them by the end of this year. For this, the existing tracks need to be uplifted.

According to former railway employees, Vande Bharat trains will not be able to clock the highest speed of 160 kmph on any of the stretches where they are currently running. The speed of these trains has been restricted to 160 kmph for now as the Railways has to upgrade the tracks and also build fences on both sides of the tracks to prevent trespassing. Work is on to raise the sectional speed to 160 kmph on the existing New Delhi-Mumbai (including Vadodara-Ahmedabad) and New Delhi-Howrah (including Kanpur-Lucknow) routes.

Kerala’s dream rail

Kerala has announced a plan to have a 200-kmph semi-high-speed train called SilverLine or K-Rail, becoming the first state to consider such a project. It is, however, yet to get a go-ahead from the Centre. If it materialises, it will likely be the first railway line in India with public equity participation.

Of the project cost of Rs 63,941 crore, 52.7 per cent of the loans are pegged to come from multilateral or bilateral agencies. The project has already got a nod from several central government bodies for securing loans to the tune of $2.5 billion from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA); $1 billion from the Asian Development Bank (ADB); $500 million from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB); and $460 million from German development bank KfW.

However, what is causing trouble for the state government is the widespread resistance from the local people and the Centre not giving a final nod to the proposal.

Last week, the Railways ministry informed the Kerala High Court that the state is to provide a detailed project report, including the alignment design and the private and railroad properties required to implement the project. With the Centre, too, going against it, Kerala’s dream of having a semi-high-speed line between two of its most prominent cities is likely to take some time.