15 February,2009 10:50 AM IST | | PTI
A French rail transport company has bagged the contract for conducting pre-feasibility study of ambitious Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project.
Systra pipped four contenders in the race for the high- speed rail corridor study project, including companies from England, Spain, Germany and China to win the Rs 15 crores contract, said a senior Railway Ministry official close to the development.
The bullet train at 350 km per hour speed aims to reduce the travel time between Pune and Mumbai to just 25 minutes and the travel time from Mumbai to Ahmedabad will shrink to less than two hours.
Travel time between the 93 km Pune-Mumbai is three hours while journey on 440 km long Mumbai-Ahmedabad takes about 7 hours.
The study will focus on technicalities, financial and operational viability of the project. Systra is expected to submit study report within six months.
u00a0The proposed corridor will serve the cities of Pune, Lonavala, Kandla, Kalyan, Mumbai, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand and Gandhinagar.
Systra will also suggest possible alignment, fare structure and volume of passengers in the proposed high-speed corridor, the first of its kind in the country.
Besides the elevated route, Systra will also examine the possibility of opting underground route for the high-speed corridor.
Railways have decided to conduct pre-feasibility study for high speed corridors in total six routes including Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Delhi-Patna.
The other routes selected for the study are Delhi- Chandigarh-Amritsar, Hyderabad-Dornakal-Vijaywada-Chennai, Chennai-Bangalore-Coimbatore-Ernakulum and Howrah-Haldia. According to an estimate, it will cost about Rs 50 crores to construct one km of elevated high-speed rail corridor.
States such as Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Maharashtra, Kerala, West Bengal have agreed to part-fund the project. Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar route is the next to be taken up for the pre-feasibility study, the official said.
The pre-feasibility studies will be followed by detailed project reports which will focus on traffic patterns, funding plan, stakeholders' view, among others, before beginning the work.
The study on the bullet train project is required for the involvement of financial institutions and industries, while the government will give stress on viability gap funding.
