The Indian Railways has made a proposal to set up six high-speed rail corridors in the country, including Mumbai-Hyderabad high-speed corridor. The National High-Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRCL) is currently executing the country’s first bullet train project connecting Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

Of the six corridors, two will be in Maharashtra. Other routes include Mumbai-Nashik-Nagpur (753 km), Delhi-Noida-Agra-Kanpur-Lucknow-Varanasi (865 km), Delhi-Jaipur-Udaipur-Ahmedabad (886 km), Chennai-Bengaluru-Mysuru (435 km) and Delhi-Chandigarh-Ludhiana-Jalandhar-Amritsar (459 km). The detailed project report (DPR) is being prepared for the new bullet train project.

The Ministry of Railways had recently instructed to submit DPRs for high- speed rail corridors by 2020. The estimated cost for preparing the DPR for each corridor will be around Rs six to Rs seven crore. The high-speed rail corridors are a part of creating a diamond quadrilateral by the Central government.

The 711 km long Mumbai-Hyderabad corridor will connect Mumbai to Hyderabad via Pune. The preparation for the DPR for the new corridors will begin soon.

The survey is one of the main features of the DPR and took nearly three months to conduct the survey for Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor. Once the DPR is prepared, it will be submitted to the Railway Board for review, following which it will require the Union government’s approval. The project is expected to be completed by 2023.