The much-awaited Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Corridor (MAHSR), famous as India’s first bullet train, is providing a major boost to the cement and construction industry, while providing employment opportunities.
As per official data, around 20,000 cubic meters of cement concrete, equivalent to eight buildings of 10-storey each, is being used every day for the bullet train project across the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. Till date, about 78 lakh cubic meters of concreting work has been completed by deploying 13 lakh large transit mixers.
“This scale of work is made possible with the dedicated working of about 20,000 workmen every day for the past two-and-a-half years resulting in significant employment generation,” the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project, with its 508-km alignment, 12 stations, 24 river bridges, 8 mountain tunnels and one undersea tunnel, is “an infrastructural marvel in the making”, said the NHSRCL, the body undertaking the construction.
The firm also said that high quality construction technology is being adopted for this mega project. “To carry out this mega work, especially designed and manufactured 65 concrete batching plants have been set up along the corridor,” they said.
More bullet trains across the country was one of the poll promises of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In its manifesto or ‘Sankalp Patra’ for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the party said it is building India’s first bullet train corridor and will use the experience gained to initiate feasibility studies for similar corridors in North, South and East India.
In March, little before the Lok Sabha elections, Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had said that the much-awaited bullet train project will be ready by 2026, with services between Surat and Bilimora.
THE PROJECT
The total cost of the MAHSR project was estimated as Rs 1 lakh crore in 2015. About 81 per cent of the cost is being funded by the Government of Japan and remaining is being provided through the Equity by the shareholders — Government of India (Ministry of Railways) (50%), Government of Gujarat (25%) and Government of Maharashtra (25%).
The work on the country’s first bullet train started in September 2017 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. It was targeted to be completed by December 2023. However, several factors are impacting the project growth, including pace of land acquisition by state government, shifting of infringing utilities, law and order situation, statutory clearances, encountering unforeseen circumstances, litigation in courts and climatic conditions.
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