Modi for first
high-speed train by 2017
The Government is keen on running India’s first high-speed
train (HST) between Ahmedabad and Mumbai. Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants
the train to be running by the end of 2017, said sources in the Railway
Ministry. Much ground work had already been done for this section with the
submission of a pre-feasibility report, which has estimated the cost of a
543-km-long new track at Rs. 70,000 crores.
The first high-speed rail corridor is likely to be funded
through soft loans from key international funding agencies such as Japan
International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and World Bank. The government prefers
soft loans to private funding under the public-private partnership model due to
high-risk and uncertainty over profits involved in the project, which might deter
private players from participating.
According to senior Railway officials, these funding
agencies have also expressed interest to finance the first high-speed rail
corridor. The 534-km long Mumbai-Ahmedabad stretch is likely to be the first
high-speed rail corridor and is expected to have trains running at speed of up
to 350 km per hour. JICA is undertaking a feasibility study of the corridor
project.
The vast pool of research and knowledge available on the
Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor (earlier a RITES study was also conducted for the
corridor) and the high gross domestic product of Maharashtra and Gujarat, which
can offer traffic with higher spending capacity make the corridor a preferred
option.
Senior Railway officials involved with the project said the government
thinks that it was not feasible to explore PPP for the first high-speed rail
project. "We do not think that private parties will be interested. This is
the first project with high risks and first of its kind in the country. The
first project has to be done by the government. Once it is successful, private
players will be interested for the other projects," said a senior Railway
official on condition of anonymity. The estimated project cost is about Rs
54,000 crore with per km cost of Rs 100 crore.
JICA already has investments in key projects like for the
Western arm of the Dedicated Freight Corridor Project and has also funded the
Delhi Metro. Senior JICA officials said the agency was interested to fund the
high-speed rail projects in India.We are keen to fund the first high-speed
rail project and the feasibility study for Mumbai-Ahmedabad should be completed
by middle of the next year. The cost, funding and viability aspects of the
project are under examination,? said a senior JICA official who did not want to
be named.
JICA is exploring the option to fund the project under
Special Terms of Economic Partnership (STEP) loan; a similar loan model is used
for the DFCC project. Under this option, a soft loan is availed at cheap rates
for a period of about 40 years with a moratorium of ten years. The contractor
for the project needs to be a Japanese company in a joint venture with the
Indian counterpart.
