HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad-Mumbai High-Speed Rail (HM-HSR) corridor project has got momentum with the latest social and environment impact surveys and public consultation meetings in the states concerned for preparation of a detailed project report (DPR).
The 650-km corridor passes through Vikarabad, Ranga Reddy and Sangareddy districts in Telangana state, Karnataka’s Kalburagi (Gulbarga) and Maharashtra’s Thane, Raigad, Pune and Solapur districts.
The railway ministry has selected the Delhi-based National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) to prepare the DPR of seven HSR corridors including the Hyderabad-Mumbai one.
The NHSRCL, which is executing the country’s first HSR (bullet train) connecting Mumbai and Ahmedabad, on Monday held public consultation meetings with stakeholders at Thane in Maharashtra.
Vikarabad's additional collector Motilal is said to have instructed revenue officials to help the NHSRCL team by providing requisite information like revenue maps, photographs, geographical areas detail and population for the rail corridor project for Social Impact Assessment (SIA) and Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) reports.
Drones will be used for the survey of the land required for the project, which costs approximately Rs 1.08 crore as per the earlier estimations.
Speaking to this newspaper, NHSRCL official spokesperson Sushma Gaur from Delhi said, “Yes, we are currently on the job of preparing the DPR for the Hyderabad-Mumbai HSR project. We held meetings with stakeholders over SIA and EIA on Monday in Thane. We will hopefully submit the DPR early next year to the government.”
Meanwhile, sources said if the project got operational, travel time of a passenger in the high-speed train on the corridor would be reduced from the present 14-15 hours to 3-4 hours between Hyderabad and Mumbai.
“In fact, we proposed the project in 2019 and wanted to complete it by 2023. But the project was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, we have resumed our work. We have set a 2024-25 target to complete this project,” a reliable source from the railway board told this newspaper.
