Feasibility study for Ahmedabad-Mumbai-Pune Bullet Train completed; ministry working on financing for the project .
Railway minister Dinesh Trivedi, the first Gujarati to present the railway budget in parliament, has proposed setting up of a coach manufacturing unit in Kutch district. Indian Railways already has coach manufacturing units at eight locations in the country. Kutch will be the ninth place to have such a factory.
Trivedi has announced 75 new trains in the budget. Of this, 20% (or 15) are connected to Gujarat. Further, people from the state will be able to get Gujarati Thali in trains as the minister has proposed providing regional dishes at affordable rates through a catering service.
During his speech while presenting the 2012-13 Railway Budget, Trivedi said that in view of the increased requirement of coaches, a new coach factory will be built in Kutch. Two other coach factories will also be constructed in Kerala and Karnataka, respectively.
Three of the five new trains announced for Gujarat in the last year’s railway budget are yet to be started. This did not deter Trivedi from announcing 15 new trains connecting the state to other places in the country. Many of these trains are linked to Ahmedabad too.
Ahmedabad-Ajmer Intercity Express (daily); Coimbatore-Bikaner AC Express (weekly) via Ahmedabad; Bikaner-Bandra Express (weekly) via Ahmedabad; Ahmedabad-Gorakhpur Express (weekly) are among the new trains proposed in the railway budget. The railway minister has also extended and increased the frequency of some trains in Gujarat.
Talking about the A'bad-Pune Bullet train, Trivedi said the feasibility study for the train had been completed. "We had decided to construct high speed passenger rail corridors in the country to run trains at 250-350 km per hour.
The study for Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor has been completed and we are working on finalizing the financing for this project," he said in his speech. Trivedi also said that Indian Railways will begin the new line survey for High Speed Rail Corridor (HSRC) between Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad.
The budget also proposes to set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) - Indian Railway Station Development Corporation - to redevelop stations and maintain them on the pattern of airports.
The SPV will draw upon success stories from the world over, adopt a suitable revenue model and target redevelopment of 100 stations over the next five years. Ahmedabad railway station is among the 100 selected for redevelopment.
Following redevelopment, the railway station is likely to have an escalator as well. As safety is a priority for the railway minister, he announced that the unfinished task of installing an Integrated Security System at all the 202 identified stations, including Ahmedabad, would be completed during 2012-13.
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