Impressive concept but not feasible in India: Former Rail Minister Nitish Kumar on bullet trains
Patna: Former Railway minister and JD-U leader Nitish Kumar on Wednesday said that bullet trains, proposed in this year's Railway budget, were not feasible in the country, though the concept sounded very impressive.
Kumar said that he travelled from London to Paris on a bullet train during his time and made efforts to have it in India too during his tenure as the Railway minister.
"The concept of Bullet trains is indeed very impressive but it has been not been found feasible in India," he said.
First of all, a dedicated track was needed for a bullet train to run and for which a huge amount of land was needed too, Kumar said.
Besides, there should be no highways contagious to the tracks to prevent it from falling over road vehicles in case of accidents as the speed went up to as high as 300 km per hour, he said.
Railway minister Sadanand Gowda in his budget speech yesterday announced introduction of bullet trains starting off with the Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector.
Kumar said that the concept had been mooted for the first time during the Indira Gandhi regime and since then had been customarily finding place in Railway budgets except in his time.
"The concept of Bullet train was mooted for the first time in India during time of late Indira Gandhi in 1980. Since than it has been finding place in the budgets of all Railway ministers except in my time," Kumar, who was the Railway minister when NDA's Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister, told reporters.
Bullet trains, which will entail an investment of ~Rs. 60,000 crore, will be funded via innovative financial models
— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) July 8, 2014Bullet trains, which will entail an investment of ~Rs. 60,000 crore, will be funded via innovative financial models
— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) July 8, 2014Full text of the Railway Budget 2014-15.... @RailMinIndia http://t.co/4amBpTqpbC
— Sadananda Gowda (@DVSBJP) July 8, 2014