Railway unveils 6,000-km new corridors worth ₹10 lakh-cr

The Indian Railways is set to announce a comprehensive expansion plan of bullet train projects including doubling freight capacity, and 10 new corridors of about 6,000 km length under the high-speed rail corridors crisscrossing the entire country. In this connection, it has sent a proposal to the Central Cabinet for a feasibility study for 10 potential bullet train corridors and approval for preparation of a DPR. These corridors are – Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Kolkata, Delhi-Amritsar, Delhi-Varanasi, Delhi-Bhopal, Delhi-Ahmedabad, Nagpur-Mumbai, Patna-Kolkata, Chennai-Bengaluru, Chennai -Mysore High-Speed Rail Corridor. Official sources informed that the implementation of these projects will be taken up over a period of time at an investment of around ₹10 lakh crore. At present, only one high-speed rail corridor is being run on Mumbai-Ahmedabad rail route. According to the plans, the immediate focus of the Railways is to connect a 17,000-km network to the existing 1.2 lakh km rail network involving more than ₹5 lakh crore investment, funding for which will flow from the debt and budgetary allocations.