New Delhi In any case, the central government is now engaged in the exercise of launching the bullet train on the track. If the land acquisition in Maharashtra continues to be hampered, the train will run in Gujarat on the proposed 508 km corridor between Ahmedabad-Mumbai.
The Railway Ministry has made it clear that if the Maharashtra government did not help in land acquisition, the bullet train would not run in two phases. In the first phase, this train can be run on 325 km track between Ahmedabad to Vapi. Only if land acquisition is approved will the bullet train run from Vapi to Bandra in the second phase.
Railway Board CEO Vinod Kumar Yadav said that 67 percent of the land has been received for the bullet train project. Of this, 825 hectares of land has been acquired out of 956 hectares in Gujarat. Due to the acquisition of about 90 percent of the land in Gujarat, the ground work has been started by issuing tenders.
By the way, the Maharashtra government has assured to acquire the land in four months. Out of 432 hectares in Maharashtra, 97 hectares of land has been acquired. This is only 22 percent of the required land. Out of 8 hectares of land in Dadar and Nagar Haveli, seven hectares of land has been acquired.
Railways will complete the losses caused by Corona epidemic
Yadav said at the year-end press conference that despite the Corona epidemic, the Railways would meet operating expenses from its revenue. He said that the measures taken to control the expenditure and the income from the freight will help to compensate the loss in the passenger items. Due to Corona, railways’ revenue from passengers fell by 87 per cent to just Rs 4,600 crore this year as compared to Rs 53,000 crore last year.
Yadav said that the railways hope that the increase in transportation of non-traditional items like food grains and fertilizers will increase the revenue. He said, Railways have spent 12 percent less so far this year than last year. We kept a check on our expenditure and since few trains are running, we are saving on fuel and other items. Despite Corona, we will meet our operating expenses with our income.
