Mumbai: Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal took to Twitter to share the much-awaited project of India’s first high-speed bullet lined up to run between Mumbai and Ahmedabad will commence in the next four years.
This high-speed bullet train will have a seating capacity of 750 passengers in its 10 coaches and will run in every twenty minutes. It shall have 12 stations – Mumbai BKC (Bandra-Kurla Complex), Thane, Virar, Boisar, Vapu, Bilimora, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anad/Nadiad, Ahmedabad, Sabarmati.
This high-speed bullet train will reduce the travel time to just 3 hours against the seven hours travel time taken by the Indian Railways while flights take only an hour.
The deadline for the project is moved to 2022 against the 2023 reports said. The designing of the tunnels, bridges, its paths have already been initiated said the sources, DC reports.
The joint project signed by Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe on 14 September 2017 attracted heavy criticism from opposition parties.
BJP’s ally Shiv Sena took a deep jab at the ruling party following the Elphinstone stampede on the foot over-bridge last year in Mumbai.
Sena had then criticized the ruling party saying, “How come the central government didn’t have money to spend on a bridge used by poor commuters but gave Rs 30,000 crores in one day” for the bullet trains.”
While PM Modi responding to the opposition had said: “those opposing the bullet train project should travel on bullock carts.”