The much-hyped but slow-moving Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project has hit a new problem. While chief minister Devendra Fadnavis told dna that he wants Nashik to be part of the high-speed train route, officials overseeing the project said a Nashik detour for the bullet train was not feasible.

In a reply to a query from dna, Fadnavis said: “I have now requested to make it (Nashik) part of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor, although the alignment is already finalised. But still I have requested the rail minister and Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).”

But SC Agnihotri, chairman-cum-managing director of Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd, the railway PSU that is in charge of building the bullet train corridor, told dna: “It is not feasible to have Nashik as part of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail (HSR) corridor.”

City-based railway officials are surprised at Fadnavis’ late move on the project though the route was under study by Western Railway’s construction department and the JICA since mid-2010. While the project report made by JICA was submitted to the railway ministry in July and is currently under the consideration of the Railway Board, officials said the alignment suggested in the report appears the most feasible.

They said that the bullet train will, as per current understanding, move from Bandra-Kurla Complex to Thane and then to Virar and run parallel to the existing Mumbai-Ahmedabad conventional line.

“Bringing in Nashik as a new destination at this moment means the project almost certainly going back to the drawing board. That is because the Mumbai-Nashik route has a very steep ghat section and new technologies will have to be tried out if the bullet train has to have a Nashik leg. The current cost - pegged at Rs 90,000 crore -- will also take a huge surge of almost 50%. It, in fact, has the potential to derail the project,” said a top railway official.

Railway officials pointed out that the Pune-Mumbai leg of the bullet train was dropped for the same reason. “The cost of constructing and running a high-speed rail in the ghat section isn’t easy. So, the Pune-Mumbai leg was dropped,” said an official.