Modernisation of Indian Railways dominates Sino-India SED meet

Modernisation of Indian Railways with China's assistance aimed at raising the speed of trains and improving heavy haul operations dominated the third round of the India-China Strategic Economic Dialogue here today.
Deputy Chief of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who led the Indian side to the meeting, said the two sides could clinch agreements by the end of this year.
"Yes on the railways we can see some thing by the end of this year," Ahluwalia told PTI after the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) session here.
Hopefully, concrete cooperation was expected on high speed tracks, heavy haul of freight in faster way as well as development of some railway stations with modern facilities, he said.

A 51-member delegation from India, which took part in the talks, included Chairman of the Railway Board, Arunendra Kumar, and Executive Director of Land and Amenities, Ashok Gupta.
Kumar outlined India's preference for speeding up the present train network instead of opting for more high cost speed rail network which required huge land acquisition.

He told PTI that India is looking for cooperation with China as it has done well in all the three areas.
For high speed trains, a special track is required whereas train speed could be doubled from the present 130 kmph to 160 kmph and even 200 kmph with high speed tracks, he said.

Besides introducing high speed trains, China has considerably increased the speed of its existing train lines.
High speed trains could log in about 300 kmph but you need a lot of land and money, Kumar said. It would cost about Rs 120 crore per km for the high speed trains whereas it would cost much less to increase the speed of the tracks.
Kumar said: "We need to remove curves and use existing rolling stock."
Asked whether India has shelved high speed train projects, Ahluwalia told media briefing later that currently Japan is compiling Direct Project Report (DPR) on Mumbai-Vadodra route.

He said India do not want to have DPRs to be done by Japan and China at the same time.