In its quest to reduce travel time by interconnecting four major metros - Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata - with high-speed network of trains running at 160 kmph, the Indian Railways‘ has chalked out an ambitious plan entailing an estimated investment of Rs.36,000 crore. In this connection, an extra budgetary allocation of the targeted fund will be made in the upcoming budget. While the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes were included in Budget 2017-2018 at a cost of Rs.11,189 crore and Rs.6,975 crore respectively, the estimates for the other four routes are under process for inclusion in the works program 2018-2019 and that the board is likely to finalize a detailed cost estimate for the remaining routes by December 31, this year. The current average speed of trains on this network is around 88-90 kmph. Christened Golden Quadrilateral, the project envisages creation of a 10,000 km network of semi-high speed routes connecting the four major cities is likely to be launched on August 15, 2022 to coincide with 75 years of India‘s Independence. The process of drawing a blueprint to interconnect the four metros - Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Howrah, Delhi-Chennai, Chennai- Howrah, Chennai-Mumbai, and Howrah-Mumbai is currently being worked out.
