Soon, you can travel by undersea rail from Mumbai to UAE

The concept is not new and is prevalent in several countries of the world. China is looking to build world's longest undersea rail tunnel linking mainland to Twaiwan. 

(A car is driven towards Macau and Zhuhai through the undersea tunnel of the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai Bridge on October 24, 2018. The world's longest sea bridge connecting Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China opened to traffic on October 24 after President Xi Jinping announced its launch- AFP)

While the idea is still in its nascent stage, The Khaleej Times quoted Alshehhi as mentioning that the complete railway network would measure less than 2,000 kilometers. The concept of an underwater rail project connecting the UAE and India comes from the same man who had proposed the UAE Iceberg project, which aims at bringing icebergs from Antarctica to solve the middle-eastern nation's water crisis - A project that is well underway with a pilot phase lined in the third quarter of 2019.

This proposal comes at a time when the Indian government is looking to scale up cruise tourism. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, known for his futurisitc ideas recently said, "We can begin water transport by bringing in floating jetties at western front. It'll be beneficial to use water transport in Mumbai. We have decided to use methanol, LNG, ethanol as fuel in Mumbai,"

Stating that Mithi River in Mumbai can be used for inland water transport, Gadkari appealed to the state government to take initiatives to clean the river.

It was in December 2009,that the Ministry of Railways had presented a white paper named 'Vision 2020' in the Parliament, which had around six routes (Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Kolkata (via Lucknow), Mumbai-Chennai, Delhi-Nagpur part of Delhi-Chennai route, Mumbai-Nagpur part of Mumbai-Kolkata route and Chennai-Bengaluru-Mysuru).

In 2015, talks for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route resurfaced on a serious note. After a feasibility study, talks began with Japan and it was concluded that the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) would fund about 80 per cent of the project that will come in form of an ODA (official development assistance).

Construction work at few locations, in form of preparing designs for stations and tendering them, started in December 2017 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi conducted Bhoomipujan for the same in September 2017. The project was launched by PM Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in September last year.

However, many farmers protest and litigations etc have impacted the pace of the project. 

In a major breakthrough, Virgin Hyperloop Group in cooperation with Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) will start constructing a 10 km hyperloop test track around the information technology corridor in Pune. 

So there are many alternative forms of communication coming into foray each with their challenges. An undersea tunnel is definitely a very audacious dream. But if it becomes a reality, it will be another feather in the cap of the Maximum City.