Build Mumbai-Nagpur bullet train along proposed expressway: Uddhav tells PM

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi conveying the state government’s willingness to accommodate the proposed Mumbai-Nashik-Nagpur high-speed rail (HSR) corridor along the under-construction Nagpur-Mumbai Super Communication Expressway or the Samruddhi Mahamarg. The chief minister also proposed that the Centre should take up Mumbai-Hyderabad high-speed rail corridor via Jalna-Nanded using the proposed Jalna-Nanded expressway. The CM also requested that the railways should build a high-speed corridor between Pune-Aurangabad.

The letter came over a week after Thackeray, at a public function, pledged support for the Mumbai-Nagpur high-speed rail project to the minister of state for railway Raosaheb Danve. “Yes, there are expectations from each other. Raosaheb, I give you my word in front of everyone here that if you are going to take initiative for a Mumbai-Nagpur bullet train [project], then this government will stand firmly by you in every step,” Thackeray had said. He added that a bullet train between Mumbai and Nagpur is “our wish, expectation, and dream.”

According to the two-page letter, Thackeray said that if Centre and State governments can “collaborate”, the proposed bullet train project between Mumbai and its winter capital can be executed “at the earliest”. He wrote, “If the Government of India and the Government of Maharashtra collaborate along the Samruddhi Mahamarg the execution of the Mumbai-Nashik-Nagpur HSR can be started at the earliest. GoM further proposes that since Mumbai-Nagpur HSR will be within the Samruddhi Mahamarg right of way (RoW) up to Jalna the same may be extended to Hyderabad.” The state government has already planned an expressway between Nanded and Jalna.

Thackeray further said that using the “logic” of incorporating high-speed rail with Expressways, a corridor between Hyderabad and Mumbai can also be built through Nanded. “If the same logic of accommodating the HSR within the RoW of an expressway, as is proposed by the NHSRC between Nagpur and Mumbai, the Mumbai-Hyderabad HSR can also be planned along Mumbai-Nanded Expressway via Jalna and further within the RoW of proposed expressway between Nanded and Hyderabad. It is also felt that an HSR route between Pune and Aurangabad also needs to be planned. It should be noted that Mumbai-Nagpur connects Mumbai-Nashik-Aurangabad,” the letter stated.

The state government has planned a semi-high speed corridor between Pune and Nashik, and connectivity between Pune and Aurangabad will complete the -quadrilateral, which is the industrial belt of Pune-Nashik-Aurangabad.