The latest lie of Prime Minister is bullet train and the project has got a loan from Japan at very liberal conditions, the news is in headlines these days. From Metro Man E. Shridharan, many other people say that our country is not ready for the bullet train right now. But who is going to listen to them?
If something got settled into the mind of Prime Minster Modiji, then he will do it anyhow. Likewise, now he is settled on the plan of running a bullet train. And for it, if country’s treasure is being looted, let it be. Same thing happened during demonetisation and due to which GDP has gone down.
Bullet trains will not be a matter of pride for India, the generations will come to bear it as anarchy and national punishment. The cost of running a 9-coach bullet train is Rs 1.8 lakh crore and the cost of the 17-coach Rajdhani Express is 75 crore. That means, more than 900 Rajdhani Express can run on a budget of a bullet train.
So is there a need to run a Rajdhani Express first or of a bullet train. This can be the topic of discussion and arguments. Who needs speed? And if you want, then why on such a huge cost? What kind of necessity occurs, that the government wants to run a bullet train the poor country like India.
Now, the loan of Rs 97,636 crore at 0.1% interest seems to be highly discounted. Even so, the payment of this loan will be done from the 16th to the 50th year of completion of the project. When the company who will run a bullet train, cannot be able to afford to pay the debt, then its burden will have to withstand the Indian government. The government will release that amount from the same treasury, which is made from tax, which is collected from the general public.
Even though the installments of bullet train loans will be filled up from 16th year, but if it does not earn enough from its operation, the government have to subsidise to run it. If the burden of this subsidy will not fall on the shoulders of the public, then who will bear the burden? By the way, the foundation stone has been laid. If everything went well, then the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train would start running from August 15, 2022.
Before proceeding, I want to make a disclosure that when in Ahmedabad Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and Japan Shinzo Abe was laid the foundation of the bullet train, at that time there were tremendous protests going on against this in some parts of Maharashtra and Gujarat, which was not shown up by the media.
Activists and protestors say that their land is being forcibly taken to run a bullet train and they will never give up and let this happen. The people are also assessing the media that the media is promoting only the golden barriers about the project, the damage caused by it is being hidden.
Rail is the lifeline in India. After Metro Networks bullet train is the most important and major railway project in the country. Trains on the route of about 508 km of Mumbai-Ahmedabad will pass through the country’s longest 21 km tunnel, of which 7 km will be inside the sea. Of the total route, 92 percent of the route will be elevated, 6 percent will be within the ground and only 2 percent of the route will be on the land.
That means, out of the 508 km, bullet train runs 468 kilometers above the ground, 30 km within the land and 10 km will run on land. The speed of the bullet train will be 320 km/hr and maximum of 350 km/hr. The price of per ticket of bullet train will be between Rs 3000-5000. One hour’s journey in Japan to travel in a bullet train cost $ 100 or Rs 4751. Now, how much you have to pay for more than two hours journey, from Ahmedabad to Mumbai, calculate on your own.
Ahmedabad’s Indian Institute of Management estimates that after the construction, the bullet train will be required to carry a hundred rounds between Mumbai-Ahmedabad daily. After carrying around one lakh passengers daily, only then the bullet train will be able to cover the expenses and fill the accounts of liberal debt. If all the passengers who travel between these two metro cities, through the railways, aircraft and the road, started traveling by bullet train, even then the loan cannot be paid in the prescribed years.
Approximately 1 lakh 8 thousand crores will be spent to run the train on track. 81% of the total expenditure from Japan is being provided as a simple loan, at which interest will be charged at 0.1 percent only. For the first 15 years, the Indian government will not have to pay any installment and in 50 years, India will have to pay the loan in Japanese currency yen.
To implement this project a National High-Speed Rail Corporation has been constituted, in which 50% stake is owned by the Ministry of Railways and 25% – 25% stake belongs to the Maharashtra and Gujarat government. The bullet train will reach Sabarmati via Thane, Virar, Boisar, Vapi, Bilimora, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand, Ahmedabad, starting from BKC ie Bandra Kurla Complex, at 300 Kilometer per hour.
Almost three million people travel in trains every day. Therefore, the pictures of Indian Railways presently emerge in front of my eyes, in which the passengers are filled with chaos from top to bottom and the train speeds up to 90 to 100 kilometers per hour.
The first train to run on India’s tracks ran on 16 April 1853. This train of 14 bogies was run with the help of 3 locomotives. Today, after 163 years, preparations to run bullet train in the country are in full swing. By the way, in the way the event is organized in the sequence in Gujarat, it seems to be a part of the election campaign which takes place after a few months.
Discussions upon giving Metro to Gujrat was going on when Modi became Chief Minister of the state. Modi became Chief Minister in 2001 and went from there to become Prime Minister in 2014. Metro train has not been started till today. There is a loan of Rs 2 lakh crore on Gujarat, in this case, what will happen to the bullet train, nothing can be said. There is a big question as to where the money for a bullet train will come from the rail budget of one thousand crores.
For the last 30 years, the government has not been able to pay 50 thousand crore rupees to expand the railway through the new railway track. The result is, every now and then, train accidents and mishaps take place. In this situation, from where thousand crore rupee will come for the bullet train?
The country wants to know this.
