India

The speed of Indian trains has remained stagnant since the 80s. We thought about increasing the speed in the past, but the sixth pay commissions burden had shifted our focus to freight. But the world has moved on. Even countries such as Taiwan, Vietnam, Monaco and Tunisia are at various stages of developing a high-speed rail network. For us, there will now be two sets of trains. One is a semi high-speed system that will happen soon. By end of this calendar year, we will have a train running between Delhi and Agra at 160 km per hour.We will merely tweak the system and our investments for the Delhi-Agra corridor will be less than Rs 10 crore. Then, we have envisioned the High Speed Rail System, which is a slightly longer term vision. The Rail Budget has already given the seed money of Rs 100 crore for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail corridor, and we should complete the project in eight years.
Various modalities for private sector participation will be weighed in. Multilateral agencies are also showing interest in the project. When India had its first coloured TV sets, there were sceptics. When mobile phones came, many asked their utility. Bullet train is no different