Bullet train project: NHSRCL confident to acquire up to 80 pct land by year-end

Even as Finance Ministry has learnt to have told Indian Railways to borrow the funds required for the bullet train project from the market, the National High-Speed Railway Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) claims to be able to acquire up to 80 per cent of the land for the proposed Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train by the end of 2018, said a newspaper report. 

The NHSRCL had earlier set a deadline to acquire all land required for the project by December-end, but it now aims to acquire most of the 1,500 hectares required in both Maharashtra and Gujarat by the end of the year, Indian Express report said.

The Corporation's statement reportedly comes over a month after 150 villagers and representatives from Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) staged a protest in Palghar opposing the project. The NHSRCL had earlier offered the villagers clean water facilities, Math lessons and vocational training courses, among other things, besides urging them to come on board of the mega project. 

According to the report, the Corporation is conducting a joint survey of 102 villages in Maharashtra to count the number of houses, project affected persons and assess the actual land required for the project so that it would disburse the compensation to locals in lieu of their land.

The Rs 1 lakh crore project, expected to be inaugurated on August 15, 2022, will reportedly need 1,500 hectares stretching across the two states. Majority of land acquisition will have to be accomplished in Gujarat, but 350 hectares also fall in Maharashtra, said the report, adding that in Mumbai, the land from Bandra-Kurla Complex and 102 villages in Thane and Palghar districts will also be utilised for the project. 

NHSRCL is facing stiff resistance from villagers in Diva and Palghar, as over 10,000 people are likely to be affected, the report said.

“We have completed surveying 47 villages in Thane, Mumbai and areas of Dahanu. Due to heavy rains, we have not been able to survey villages in Palghar since the past fifteen days. We will resume the work in the area soon. We are hopeful to complete the survey of villages by September,” UP Singh, chief project manager for NHSRCL, Mumbai, told Indian Express.

The bullet train network is reportedly being built with the support of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and the project is expected to cost Rs 1 lakh crore, of which Rs 81,000 crore will be borrowed from the Japanese firm.

The tender worth Rs 1,200 crores for construction of Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) station in Mumbai is expected to be floated in September, as the proposed BKC terminus for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train service will be a three-storey underground structure, the report said.

Notably, the National High Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRCL) would need around Rs 10,000 crore this year mainly for land acquisition, part of the Government of India’s commitment towards the Rs 1.08 lakh crore mega project. The government has reportedly made a commitment of around Rs 5,000 crore towards the Dedicated Freight Corridor project.

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The Railways sought around Rs 18,000 crore from the Finance Ministry, but the latter has reportedly been told to look for ways to raise the capital from the market, to be repaid by the Finance Ministry later.