The railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday told Parliament that the bullet train project between Ahmedabad and Mumbai is expected to be completed by December 2029. He added that out of the total estimated cost of the project – Rs 1.08 lakh crore, a cumulative financial expenditure of Rs 78,839 crore has been incurred till end of June 2025, which is about 73% of the overall project cost.
Delay in the project
“The delay in land acquisition in the State of Maharashtra has impacted the project till 2021. However, currently, the entire land (1389.5 hectares) for MAHSR (Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail) project has been acquired,” Vaishnaw said.
Project finances
To be sure, the entire 508-km bullet train corridor is being developed with Japanese Shinkansen technology. Out of total project cost, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is providing 81% of the funding (Rs 88,000 crore). The remaining 19% funding (Rs 20,000 crore) will come from equity contributions from the ministry of railways and the state governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat.
Recently, the railways ministry said that it will deploy the Japanese Shinkansen E10 trains on the upcoming bullet train corridor, putting an end to the long-standing speculations that the government might shun prohibitively-expensive Shinkansen trains in favour of locally-made trains by state-run BEML.