The Indian Railways is proposing to lay dedicated passenger corridors on five routes for introduction of high-speed trains. The routes are Mumbai-Pune, Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Chennai-Coimbatore-Bangalore-Ernakulam, Delhi-Amritsar and Howrah-Haldia.

?We have floated worldwide tenders to appoint an internationally reputed consultant to study the projects?, railway board chairman Kalyan Coomar Jena said on Monday. He said the study would commence by August/September this year.

The projects were taken up for the study following requests from the state governments concerned, he said, adding that the states have offered to bear 50% of the project study costs.

Jena said that as laying of barricaded tracks in India is difficult, elevated tracks are the only option for high-speed trains. However, since the cost of laying this kind of track is prohibitively high, implementation of the project is possible only with private initiatives. He said if India does have high-speed trains at all, it will opt for those running at a speed of 300 km/ hr.

The Taiwan High Speed Corp, which has acquired the latest technology for laying tracks for high-speed trains, reportedly gave a presentation to Jena in Delhi recently. The chairman said that the Indian Railways would be in a position to include north-south (Delhi-Chennai), east-west (Mumbai-Kolkata), eastern coast (Chennai-Kolkata), and south-south (Chennai-Goa) freight corridor projects in the next Budget. He said while project reports for two corridors have been received, the one for the eastern coast is expected in the next two months.

Stating that safety is the major concern of the Indian Railways, Jena said the anti-collusion device (ACD) would be put in place on a route that passes through southern, south-western, and south-central railway zones by the end of 2008-09. He said the railways has received orders for ACD from foreign railway companies in Australia, Israel, and Egypt. About setting up of world-class railway stations at Bhubaneswar, the chairman said expressions of interest would be invited soon to select concessionaires for the projects, which would be developed on the PPP model.