india

Updated: Jul 07, 2019 08:24 IST

A temporary depot, use a new technology to lay girders and other time-saving measures are being planned to operationalise at least one section of the India’s first superfast bullet train corridor by August 15, 2022 when the project is scheduled to be completed, according to the project’s executing agency.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, laid the foundation stone for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project in 2017 to mark India’s shift to highspeed trains and as part of efforts to upgrade the country’s infrastructure..

The government has set an ambitious deadline for completing the project by August 15, 2022. Protests over inadequate compensation have slowed down the land acquisition process for the project. About 35% of the land required for the project has been acquired so far, according to the managing director of NHSRCL.

The national high speed rail corporation (NHSRCL), which is executing the project, will award the tender for the 237-km elevated section by the year end. It will leave 30 months for the completion of the civil work involved.

The NHSRCL has prepared designs for various structures like stations along the section. They will be shared with the prospective contractor to save eight to nine months that would have otherwise taken for the designs after the award of the tender.

The temporary depot will be built in Gujarat’s Surat to keep trains in case the government decides to open the elevated section of the project first.

“We will open the tender [for the elevated section] in August and will award it by the year end. The expected cost of the civil work of this 237-km section is ₹20,000 crore. This includes the temporary depot in Surat in case we will have to open this section before August 15, 2022...,” said NHSRCL managing director, Achal Khare. The corporation will ask the contractor to use full span launching method for laying girders, which will also save time.