PMO assigns monitoring of Mumbai-Ahmedabad HSR implementation to PMG

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) assigned the monitoring of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (HSR) Corridor Project implementation to the Project Monitoring Group (PMG) on April 25, 2018. The PMG will now coordinate with the Maharashtra and Gujarat governments as well as ministries and other stakeholders to ensure timely completion of the project. It will liaison with the state governments, central and state agencies including environmental departments and National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) to remove any hindrances to the project. The PMO has asked the PMG to focus on two main issues – land acquisition and environmental clearances. Meanwhile, the project is facing land acquisition issues with villagers and farmers protesting against the acquisition of land and rejecting the compensation package being offered. The land acquisition process is expected to be completed by December 2018. The project involves the development of the 508 km long Mumbai-Ahmedabad HSR corridor, at an investment of Rs 1,080 billion. It will be implemented by NHSRCL, a special purpose vehicle incorporated by the Ministry of Railways (MoR) and the state governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat with an equity stake of 50:25:25 respectively. The stretch is the first corridor to be explored for the railway’s ambitious bullet train project and also includes a 21 km long subsea tunnel from Mumbai to Thane.