Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project: update by Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

The project's new operationalization deadline is yet to be announced...

Railway Minister Ashwini Vishnu post on social media that Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail corridor work on mountain tunnel has been completed.

According to officials, trains on this corridor will reach speeds of up to 350 km per hour. It is a 350-meter-long horseshoe-shaped tunnel that has been constructed in the mountains near Zaroli village.

The National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) plans to construct six additional tunnels along the 508-kilometer route between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. These tunnels will be connected with state-of-the-art Shinkansen train sets that will be procured from Japan.

S P Mittal, Chief Project Manager of the Valsad section, expressed pride in this achievement, “What makes us celebrate it is that it is the first tunnel in India through which a train with a speed of 350 kmph will pass," as reported by PTI. He said, "We have just dug the skeleton structure of the complete tunnel and the finishing work will start now."

He added, "The biggest challenge for us was how to keep the alignment of the tunnel absolutely straight …minor alignment flaw can play spoilsport. So every specification has to be followed precisely and you will not find a deviation of even a single millimeter," Mittal said.

The contract for this project was awarded to Larsen and Toubro, and the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM) was employed for construction. NATM is a well-established technique used in India for rail and road projects in several mountainous regions.

In 2016 the bullet train project came into existence, whose foundation stone was laid in 2017 and was scheduled to be complete by December 2023. The project faced delays due to land acquisition issues. Although construction work is going on, the project's new operationalization deadline is yet to be announced.