India’s first bullet train project starts this Thursday | Fusion - WeRIndia

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has teamed up with Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, to build India’s first bullet train. On the 14th of September, the two of them will lay the foundation stone for the railway.

The train will have ten cars, which will be able to accommodate 750 people in total. The railway will travel between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, and it will reduce the travel time between the two state capitals from seven hours to three.

The bullet train will later receive an upgrade to sixteen cars and a capacity of 1,200 people.

Currently, the project has a completion deadline of December 2023. However, it may be pushed forward to August 2022, which will be the celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Indian independence.

The project will cost around 1.1 lakh crore in total, and 88,000 crore of that will be funded by Japan through a soft loan. The loan will have an interest rate of 0.1%, which India will be able to repay within fifty years.

The train will run at a standard operating speed of 320 kilometers per hour and its maximum speed will be 350 kilometers per hour.

The corridor of the bullet train will be 508 kilometers long. 468 kilometers will be elevated from the ground, 13 kilometers will be on the ground, and 27 kilometers will pass through an undersea tunnel.

The fare for the bullet train will be more than the current AC first class fare. The ride between Mumbai and Ahmedabad will cost between ₹2,700 and ₹3,000, which is less than the airplane fare along this route. India will be manufacturing the bullet train parts in the country under “Make in India”.

The bullet train project will provide hundreds of employment opportunities for unemployed people, as well as learning opportunities for engineers.

Eventually, the project will also provide a fast travel opportunity that may be a significant step toward increasing the efficiency of India’s transportation system.

Image credit: Photo by Steenium on Unsplash (Free for commercial use)

Image Reference: https://unsplash.com/photos/B-hkG674QzE