Uddhav Thackeray’s second lease of life for Hyperloop

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, March 4

The Uddhav Thackeray government has decided not to scrap the Hyperloop project which was initiated by former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Maharashtra’s Urban Development Minister Eknath Shinde told the state legislative council that the project would be implemented using the Swiss Challenge method.

The support of Shinde, who belongs to the Shiv Sena, comes weeks after Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar expressed scepticism about the project.

Pawar had pointed out that the Hyperloop had not been implemented anywhere in the world.

According to Shinde, officials of Dubai’s DP World had met with state government officials to finalise a stretch of land to build a test track along the Mumbai-Pune Expressway for the Hyperloop.

Shortly after Thackeray took over as the chief minister, Richard Branson, who heads the Virgin group which conceptualised the Hyperloop, had met with him to push for the test track in Maharashtra.

The Devendra Fadnavis government was in the process of inviting Request for Proposals (RFP) from interested international parties to build the test track.

However, the assembly elections intervened and the BJP lost power in Maharashtra.

The Fadnavis government had earlier set a deadline of 2021 for the test track to be completed.

The Maharashtra Government has already appointed the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) as the nodal agency for developing the hyperloop project.