Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project has acquired only about 39 per cent of the required land so far, according to a report by news agency IANS. For the completion of the project, 1,380 hectares of land needs to be acquired. "Till date, we have acquired about 39 per cent of the land," a senior National High-Speed Rail Corporation Ltd. (NHSRCL) official told the agency. The official said that NHSRCL has acquired 537 of the 1,387 hectares land required in Maharashtra and Gujarat. In Gujarat, the NHSRCL has acquired 471 of 940 hectares of land, while in Maharashtra, it has acquired 66 of 431 hectares. The official was quoted as saying, "Of the nine hectares land required in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the agency has been unable to acquire even a single piece of land."

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A section of the bullet train operations is likely to begin in 2022.

In May this year, NHSRCL had advertised vacancy notice for recruiting personnel responsible for operations and maintenance of the high-speed rail train operations.  PTI had reported last month that NHSRCL was also planning to recruit 28 drivers for bullet train operations in the current financial year. By next year, 30 executives, in addition, may be inducted to augment the O&M organisation.

Project details

To clear the land acquisition roadblock, the government had set a deadline of December 2018. On September 14, 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe had laid the foundation stone of the ambitious Rs 1.08 lakh crore ($17 billion) 508-km long Ahmedabad-Mumbai high-speed rail project. The Union Railway Ministry and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the 508-km corridor. Japan will partially fund the project.

- Indian Railways had earlier floated the tenders for the construction of tunnelling works, including testing and commissioning for double line high-speed railway using tunnel boring machine (TBM) and New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM) between Mumbai underground station at Bandra-Kurla Complex and Shilphata in Maharashtra.

- The official said that a 21-km-long tunnel will be dug between Boisar and BKC in Mumbai, 7 km of which will be under the sea.

- Work on utility diversions on various locations is progressing well while the work at Sabarmati hub in Ahmedabad has started.

- Tenders to construct the stations in Gujarat`s Vapi, Bilimora, Surat and Bharuch have also been floated.

- Tenders have been floated for the design and construction of civil and building works including testing and commissioning of 237 km length of mainline for Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail corridor between Zaroli village at Maharashtra-Gujarat border and Vadodara in Gujarat.

- Japanese experts have estimated that the bullet train project would require around 4000 personnel under several categories such as locomotive drivers, guards, station staff, operation control centre staff, maintenance personnel, signal maintainers and electrical staff.