Modi demands provisions for high speed rail in Budget

Japan is among the few countries vying for HSR corridors project, which is part of Indian Railways Vision 2020.

Indian Railways had set up a High Speed Rail Corporation of India in July 2012 for the implementation of HSR in India. The pre-feasibility studies have been done for HSR corridors, Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad (650 km), Delhi-Agra-Varanasi

-Lucknow-Patna (990 km), Howrah-Haldia (135 km), Hyderabad

-Bhilwada-Chennai (664 km).

"Around 15 countries in the world have done major work on HSR and each one of them has evolved a system, technology and financial models in its own way...So after studying each one of them we can learn a lot and eventually develop our own

model, which can be sustainable," Modi said.

"India is one country which enjoys good relationship with Japan. In the last three Vibrant Gujarat Summits, Japan has been an active participant as partner country with Gujarat," he said.

According to Indian Railways (IR), there are four to five countries which are thinking on implementing HSR now.

"The developing countries are still struggling to make a financially viable model to implement HSR. On the financial side the issue is cost of Rs 125-150 crore per km for HSR," IR Executive Director PPP (Traffic) M S Mathur said.

"World over there have been very few private investments in HSR. It can only be made possible either with central or state government fundings," he said.

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