Railway unveils Rs.10 lakh-cr high speed corridor

Indian Railways is all set to announce Rs.10 lakh-crore high-speed train corridors connecting all major cities in the country with a length of almost 10,000 km, along the lines of the government's Bharatmala Development Program, said official sources, claiming that the plan would be announced next month. In its scheme of things, railway will unveil the routes that would be connected along with the funding mechanism. Trains would be able to run at 200 km per hour on the new rail lines that would be elevated atop the existing or upcoming national highways or on rail land running parallel to existing routes. Railways would come out with large tenders, inviting all global majors, to keep the cost of construction minimal. The government plans to build double lines on single pillars to halve the cost of construction from Rs.200 crore per km to Rs.100 crore per km. Also, light-weight aluminum coaches would be specifically designed for trains to be run on electric traction. The government is currently constructing a 534 km-long bullet train corridor between Mumbai and Ahmedabad at a cost of over Rs.1 lakh-crore. Feasibility studies for various other corridors including Delhi-Chandigarh, Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Kolkata, and Bengaluru-Chennai have already been carried out.