Railways receives feasibility report

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 1

The Indian Railways today received a feasibility report on turning the 430-km New Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar link into a high-speed corridor, a move that is expected to bring Amritsar closer to Delhi by 90 minutes by trains running upward of 350 kmph.

The report has been prepared jointly by French firm Systra and RITES, a government sector engineering consultancy firm specialising in transport infrastructure.

“A draft final report presentation on the New Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar high-speed rail corridor was given today. The final report will be prepared within some time, on the basis of which the government will decide when and how the project will be taken up,” said a senior railway official.

Railway officials estimate the project would cost about Rs65,000 crore (Rs150 crore per km). This would be the second high-speed rail corridor after the 498-km Ahmedabad-Mumbai project, for which the feasibility report has come to near conclusion.

“Unlike the Ahmedabad-Mumbai project that has a 120-km-long elevated corridor along with a 30-km tunnel, the New Delhi-Amritsar corridor will be mostly elevated and on an embankment since the area is mostly plane. Elevated corridors will come up wherever the route crosses high-density townships. The rest will be on embankment with fencing,” said the official.