New Delhi (Metro Rail News) – As low participation by Japanese companies is being seen while tenders have been cancelled because of lower rates quoted by bidders, India’s first bullet train project is stuck on multiple fronts — and staring at a delay of around five years.
The Indian Railways is now expecting the project to be commissioned fully by October 2028 with a five-year delay to its estimated time frame of December 2023.
The revised timeline has been decided after discussing with the concerned authorities.
The 508-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Corridor is being constructed with an 80 per cent loan from Japan at 0.1 per cent interest and a 15-year moratorium, with the system to be built mostly with Japanese technology on the lines of the Shinkansen.
India had been keen on opening at least a portion of the project by August 2022, to coincide with 75 years of Independence. And the Railways officially maintains that the original timeline is still in place.
“As per the feasibility study, the target date for the completion of the project is December 2023,” said a spokesperson of the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL), the implementing agency, which was set up in 2016 with equity participation by the Rail Ministry and the Maharashtra and Gujarat governments.
