Indian railways to study 10 more bullet train corridors

Indian Railways (IR) has lined up a mega expansion plan, including more than doubling the freight capacity and adding new high-speed trains for which 10 corridors.

The IR has already moved a proposal to seek Cabinet approval, which includes permission to carry out a feasibility study and a detailed project report for the 10 possible bullet train corridors.

Segments on the radar include Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Kolkata, Delhi-Amritsar, Patna-Kolkata and Chennai-Bengaluru, reports TOI.

Sources said these will require investment of about Rs 10 trillion over 10 years. “This plan is very preliminary,” a source told TOI.

Currently, there is one high-speed train corridor — Ahmedabad-Mumbai — under implementation.

The immediate focus is on adding 17,000 kilometres to the existing 0.12 million kilometre rail network, which will entail an investment of over Rs 5.0 trillion and will be funded through extra-budgetary borrowings, sources familiar with the plan told TOI.

The plan involves trebling the rail tracks along the Golden Quadrilateral and other lines with the objective being to win back traffic from roads.

Separately, three new freight corridors have been discussed on the lines of the Delhi-Mumbai and Amritsar-Kolkata DFCs.

It has been proposed that a large chunk of funding for these projects could come from multilateral funding agencies such as the World Bank, JICA and the Asian Development