Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project hits Maharashtra govt hurdle.

The Rs. 90,000-crore Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project has hit a hurdle as the Maharashtra government has categorically ruled out providing land in the tony commercial district of Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) for the proposed terminal. Instead, the government has asked the rail ministry to consider its own plots, currently vacant in Dadar, Kurla or Bandra terminus.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in a recent communication to Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu has conveyed the government’s inability to spare land, citing that the state undertaking Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) does not have adequate land.

Further, the chief minister said, it would be a loss-making proposition commercially and financially for MMRDA, as it depends on sale of land to raise finances for costly infrastructure in Mumbai and the extended Mumbai Metropolitan Region. MMRDA is the authority for planning and development of BKC, spread over 370 hectares.


BS