Presenting the project to the bidders, NHSRL told it would be ushering India into the club of around 15 countries in the world using high-speed rail (HSR) system.

CHENNAI, India (Metro Rail News): The National High-Speed Rail Corporation of India (NHSRCL) has called bids for executing stage-1 preliminary route development (alignment and aerial design) for The Mysore-Chennai High-Speed Rail corridor

The maximum running speed of the trains is over 300km/hr on a high-speed corridor.

Even Bengaluru is waiting for the central cabinet approval of having a full-fledged suburban rail system as what is already have in other big cities in the country despite decades of delay. The matter of fact is, the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) which met on Wednesday did not take up the issue even though it was again named in the Union Budget presented on 1st February, and has gone through excessive delays in the past.

The omission of the Bengaluru suburban rail issue in Wednesday’s CCEA meeting has prompted not happy answers within activists in Bengaluru on social media. Srinivas Alavilli, “Are we on the CCEA agenda today? If not, why not? Co-founder of Citizens for Bangalore said.

At the same time, the Mysuru-Chennai route is among five corridors on which the tenders for route development have been called.

Previously, a German expert delegation had taken a technical feasibility study for running trains at high speeds of 300 kilometres/hr. Newly in June 2019, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had said the parliament that although the feasibility study was done, there was no cabinet note done at that point.

The other routes identified are Delhi-Jaipur-Udaipur-Ahmedabad (886 km), Mumbai-Nasik-Nagpur (753 km), Delhi-Chandigarh-Ludhiana-Jalandhar-Amritsar (459 km), and Mumbai-Pune-Hyderabad (711 km). The Mumbai-Pune-Hyderabad (711 km) route will also feature Kalaburagi as an intermediate station.

This announcement introduced by the NHSRCL comes after at the end of January, the Railway Board Chairman VK Yadav stated the detailed project report (DPR) on the six lines will be available within a year’s time.

Although, the already confirmed Mumbai-Ahmedabad rail corridor has been proceeding at a slow pace with the Maharashtra govt not keen on the project and the Supreme Court set to hear disputes related to land acquisition.

Even specialists have opined that instead of spending on high-speed rail corridor infrastructure, the Railways should utilise existing support far more efficiently.

“Bengaluru-Chennai already is on a semi-high speed route. But the Mysuru-Bengaluru route does not match the semi-high speed standards. But it also does not make sense to invest in high-speed infrastructure in a suburban structure as you have to provide stoppages in between,” Chitresh Srivastava, a railway policy columnist said.

“High-speed rail is not a viable idea compared to Train18 or Tejas Express as they can run on the existing tracks,” he also added.