Turns out the bullet train project between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, worth Rs 98,000 crore, can in fact not stop at Mumbai, reported The Indian Express. The Maharashtra government has refused to allow the station to be built in Mumbai.
As per plans, the station in Mumbai was meant to be an underground station at the Bandra-Kurla complex (BKC), the report said. After much deliberation and surveying, Japanese consultants had reportedly chosen the location keeping the state authority in confidence.
However, the Mahashtra government has now turned away from the plans, saying that the station would come in the way of building a financial centre at BKC, the report said.
According to the report, officials of the Railway Ministry held meetings with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in May, but not much came of it. The state told Railways that the station would result in a revenue loss of Rs 10,000 crore, said the report.
While the plan has been put on hold for now, some in Railways may approach the Prime Minister to intervene in the situation as Maharashtra is a BJP-ruled state, said The Indian Express.
According to the report, the new bullet train project would need only 0.9 hectares of land, out of 28-hectare land at BKC. The state, however, has maintained that a substantial portion of the area would become inaccessible for the proposed financial centre, given the “existing building bylaws and rules governing commercial establishments.”
The state government has also reportedly told Railways that since Maharashtra will host only a small portion of the train corridoor, such a huge revenue loss is not justified. It advised Railways to either extend the corridor beyond Mumbai or use its own vacant land to build the station, said the report.
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