{"id":34756,"date":"2018-10-31T13:11:54","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T07:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=34756"},"modified":"2018-10-31T13:11:54","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T07:41:54","slug":"does-india-need-a-bullet-train-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/does-india-need-a-bullet-train-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Does India need a bullet train?:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-opinion\/does-india-need-a-bullet-train\/article19804418.ece\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Does India need a bullet train?<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context <\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train was launched recently in India and has been a reason of lot of debate with some saying that it is a vanity project which has little or no justification on the grounds of economic viability or public service. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Other Countries experience with bullet train(High Speed Rail)<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Japan\u2019s pioneering Shinkansen, which connects Tokyo to Osaka, passes through the biggest industrial and commercial centres, caters to almost 50% of Japan\u2019s population, and carries more than 150 million passengers annually. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">South Korea\u2019s Seoul-Busan HSR caters to almost 70% of the population, yet struggles with viability.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">France\u2019s fabled Paris-Lyon HSR service has had to periodically receive substantial subsidies. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the U.S. is tentatively initiating a San Francisco-Los Angeles corridor, and is still unsure about the densely populated industrial-commercial Philadelphia-Boston-New York-Washington DC corridor. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Turkey\u2019s Ankara-Istanbul HSR line is the only example from a middle-income country, and the jury is still out on its viability.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Why bullet train is not feasible for India ?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><strong>Economic concern<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The main problem is viability, given the huge costs involved.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Mumbai-Ahmedabad HSR costs around Rs. 1 lakh crore. Estimates in the project report by the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad show that at least 1 lakh passengers at fares of Rs. 4,000-Rs. 5,000 would be required daily for the project to break even<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The air fares between the two cities are around Rs. 2,500. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many business analysts have pointed out that the repayment amount will amount to Rs. 1.5 lakh crore over 20 years allowing for exchange rates and comparative inflation leading to outflow of forex<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Social concern<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Subsidies appear inevitable. Subsidies for agriculture, education and healthcare are being reduced, but subsidies for the rich seem unproblematic.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">over 90% of rail passengers in India travel by sleeper class or lower class for thousands of kilometres.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Why India is moving ahead with HSR project<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are a lot of commercial and industrial establishments in this region. As a result, this sector will witness benefits and increase economy of scale in the region<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Reduce travel time to 2hr<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This corridor will also take some passenger load off the existing Mumbai-Ahmedabad line, thereby creating passenger capacity for towns which are not served by the high speed rail link.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This Project has \u201cMake in India\u201d &amp; \u201cTransfer of technology\u201d objectives. Therefore lead to skill development<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This project will also open up new venue of employment<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Does India need a bullet train?:\u00a0 Context The Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train was launched recently in India and has been a reason of lot of debate with some saying that it is a vanity project which has little or no justification on the grounds of economic viability or public service. Other Countries experience with bullet train(High&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/does-india-need-a-bullet-train-2\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Does India need a bullet train?:\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704801873},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}