The 505 km corridor linking
Mumbai and Ahmedabad gas been assessed as a viable project.
Japan has offered to finance India’s first bullet train,
estimated to cost $15 billion, at an interest rate of less than 1 per cent,
officials said, stealing a march on China, which is bidding for other projects
on the world’s fourth-largest network.
Tokyo was picked to assess the feasibility of building the
505-km corridor linking Mumbai and Ahmedabad, the commercial capital of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s home State, and concluded it would be technically and
financially viable.
The project to build and supply the route will be put out to
tender, but offering finance makes Japan the clear frontrunner.
Last month, China won the contract to assess the feasibility of
a high-speed train between Delhi and Mumbai, a 1,200-km route estimated to cost
twice as much. No loan has yet been offered.
Japan’s decision to give virtually free finance for Modi’s pet
programme is part of its broader push back against China’s involvement in
infrastructure development in South Asia over the past several years.
“There are several (players) offering the high-speed technology.
But technology and funding together, we only have one offer. That is the
Japanese,” said A. K. Mital, the Chairman of the Indian Railway Board, which
manages the network.
The two projects are part of a ‘Diamond Quadrilateral’ of
high-speed trains over 10,000 km of track that India wants to set up connecting
Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. Japan has offered to meet 80 per cent of
the Mumbai-Ahmedabad project cost, on condition that India buys 30 per cent of
equipment including the coaches and locomotives from Japanese firms, officials
said.
Japan’s International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which led the
feasibility survey, said the journey time between Mumbai and Ahmedabad would be
cut to two hours from seven. The route will require 11 new tunnels including
one undersea near Mumbai.
“What complicates the process is Japanese linking funding to use
of their technology. There must be tech transfer,” said Mr. Mital.
Rickety rail
JICA declined to comment on the details of its offer.
JICA declined to comment on the details of its offer.
“The report has already been handed over to India, and the
Indian government is now in the process of making a consideration,” a
spokeswoman said.
Toshihiro Yamakoshi, counsellor in the economic section of the
Japanese embassy, said Japanese companies were keen to collaborate with their
Indian counterparts on the rail project as part of Modi’s Make-in-India
programme. He said it was too early to provide details of the cooperation.
Tokyo’s push in India comes just weeks after it lost out to
China on the contract to build Indonesia’s first fast-train link.
Beijing offered $5 billion in loans without asking for
guarantees, an Indonesian official said, ending a month-long battle to build
the line linking Jakarta with the textile hub of Bandung.
Japan’s NHK broadcaster quoted Transport Minister Keiichi Ishii
as saying that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had instructed him to step up exports
of transport systems to India and Southeast Asia.
“It is very regrettable that a high-speed railway project in
Indonesia was awarded to China,” he said.
China won the Delhi-Mumbai survey after securing clearance from
Indian security agencies long worried about China’s involvement in Indian
infrastructure.
The two neighbours fought a war in 1962 over a border dispute
that remains unresolved, though trade between them is booming.
India’s cabinet will take a decision on the Japanese proposal
over the next few weeks, an Indian railway official said. He said there were
lingering concerns about whether the billions of dollars required for high-speed
rail might be more usefully spent in modernising the railway system.
“There is a lot of money involved in this. The different
departments are weighing the implications. Should we be committing all our
resources to a single high-speed line,” the railway official said on condition
of ‘anonymity’.
“The railways have not attempted anything as big as this before
in terms of costs,” the official said.
India’s rickety State-controlled rail system, which moves 23
million people a day, has a poor safety record and is in desperate need of
funds to modernise it.
The average speed of trains is 54 km/hour, and rail experts have
argued that the priority ought to be to improve the speed and safety on
existing trains and routes.