A tariff has been proposed by Ministry of Railways for upcoming bullet train service between Mumbai-Ahmedabad which is going to be 1.5 times more as compared to the AC 1st class fare which is prevailing now.
For instance, in the Duronto Express, the current fare is 2,200 between Mumbai-Ahmedabad. This means that the run between both the cities in this high-speed and dedicated corridor would be around Rs.3,300.
Manoj Sinha, the Minister of State for Railways in a written reply in Lok Sabha stated that the 1st phase would be having a design speed of maximum 350 kmph and operating speed would be 320kmph.
What the ministry expects?
Ministry has expectations of around 36,000 daily users per day both ways by the year 2023 and by the year 2053, the number would be reaching 186,000. 2.07 hours would be the total journey time of fast train while it would be 2.58 hours in the slow train.
Total 12 stations have been planned i.e. Mumbai, Thane, Virar, Boisar, Vapi, Bilimora, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand, Ahmedabad and Sabarmati. The total cost of completion is going to be around 97,636 crores. Manoj Sinha further added that “Further, it has been decided to undertake a feasibility study between Delhi-Nagpur as part of the New Delhi-Chennai corridor through government-to-government cooperation with China,”
Views of Suresh Prabhu!
Last week, there was a debate in the Lok Sabha in which minister Suresh Prabhu stated that bullet trains aren’t going to be expensive for the country since a soft loan of 1 lakh crore has been taken by the government from Japan at just 0.1 percent interest.
This technology which is used will help in improving services of normal trains and also in integrating signaling systems.