New Delhi: The National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) is likely to acquire a major chunk of land required for the 508-km-long Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train project by the end of 2019.
NHSRCL spokesperson Sushma Gaur said that the land will be taken over once the tenders for the project were finalised.
"Major chunk of the land acquisition is likely to be completed by December 2019," said Gaur.
Emphasising on the progress of the project, Gaur said, "Two or three months back the total land acquired was 33 per cent. And within 90 days we were able to acquire over 6 per cent more land."
The bullet trains are expected to run at 320 km per hour covering the 508 km stretch in about two hours, while the regular trains now plying on the same route take over seven hours to travel the distance while planes take about an hour of flying time.
The NHSRCL has already acquired about 39 per cent, i.e, 537 of the 1,380 hectares of land till date, with 471 of 940 hectares in Gujarat and 66 of 431 hectares in Maharashtra.
The rail corporation has, however, failed to take over any of the nine hectares required in Dadra and Nagar Haveli Union Territory.
Gaur further said that the railways had floated tenders for tunnelling work, including testing and commissioning of the double line high-speed railway using tunnel boring machine (TBM) and New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM) between the underground station at the Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai and Shilphata in Maharashtra.
According to the official, a 21-km tunnel will be dug between Boisar in Maharashtra and the Bandra-Kurla Complex, 7 km of which will be under the sea.
Gaur said the design and construction of civil and building works, including testing and commissioning of 237 km of length of rail line corridor between Zaroli village on the Maharashtra-Gujarat border and Vadodara in Gujarat, have been floated.
This accounts for 47 per cent of the total length of the project and will include a mountain tunnel of about 280 metres, 24 river crossings and 30 road and canal crossings.
She said the tenders to construct the stations in Gujarat's Vapi, Bilimora, Surat and Bharuch had also been floated.
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The construction of the Sabarmati hub in Ahmedabad to be linked to the bullet train station has started.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe on September 14, 2017, had laid the foundation stone for the ambitious Rs 1.08 lakh crore ($17 billion) high-speed rail project.
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Railway Ministry have signed an MoU, with Japan to partially fund the project.
The bullet train project has had its fair share of resistance, with environmental and right's activists pointing out to its potential of displacing thousands of people in Gujarat and Maharashtra as well causing irreversible damage to the environment.
