Civil

India Set the Course For First Ever Bullet Train On Its Soil

14.09.2017

The Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi and Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe jointly laid the foundation stone for India’s first ever bullet train project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. The Prime Minister thanked the Japanese PM for the technical and financial help for the bullet train project in India and praised the Japanese Prime Minister for launching this project within such a short time. Project will create large number of employment opportunities in India. During the said visit of Japanese PM Abe, India and Japan also singed around 15 MOUs/Agreements with each other in the field of science and technology, sports, disaster risk management, investment, civil aviation etc. for bringing closer two countries to work together in present and future. One of the interesting part is that a major portion of finance of this high speed rail network is funded by Japan.

The India’s biggest benefit comes from the financial aspect as the bullet rain project is expected to cost Rs. 1.10 lakh crore and Japan will fund 81 per cent of the entire project at a meagre interest rate of 0.1%, with repayment of said loan over a period of 50 years. The entire project is expected to be completed by the Year 2022-2023. However, the success of financial viability of the project will be seen once the train project is completely operational.

The high speed rail network to be launched in India uses the Japanese Shinkansen high speed rail technology which runs throughout Japan. Shinkansen literally means a 'new trunk line' in Japanese. In-fact, the first Shinkansen train ran at a maximum speed of 210 km per hour and presently, a Shinkansen's maximum speed is 320 km per hour. Another very relevant and important aspect of Shinkansen trains is that, they have never been involved in any accident since 1964. The Shinkansen trains have an inbuilt safety system in case of earthquakes. The advanced sensors can detect an earthquake at an early stage and automatically stop the train. Shinkansen train is safe, it has had zero passenger fatalities despite frequent earthquakes and typhoons.

Finally with the arrival of project of bullet train in India, it is quite hopeful that in coming years, India will compete with most advanced countries not only with intellectual advancement but also with infrastructural advancement. Infact, apart from Mumbai-Ahmadabad corridor, the Government is also planning bullet trains for other corridors connecting Delhi –Mumbai and other metropolitan cities in near future.

Tags : Project Bullet train Foundation

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