Should India spend Rs 1 lakh crore for a bullet train?
Can India afford to spend Rs 1 lakh crore, would be a better way of putting it. The ‘magic train’ as described by Rahul Gandhi, would never see the light of the day, he said.
In 2015, India signed a deal with Japan with the latter helping to finance the construction. The train was supposed to connect Mumbai and Ahmedabad and reduce the travel time from 8 hours to about 2 hours and seven minutes with limited halts.
Bullet trains move fast and it is the rich who usually use the service. Do we need a bullet train to connect the cities when majority of the people languish in poverty and ill-afford to even hop onto the already available AC coaches of the hundreds of trains in India. According to IIM Ahmedabad report, it needs 1 lakh passengers spending Rs 5,000 every single day for the project to be viable. Where are the passengers and why should one spend so much when a person can just catch a flight under Rs 3,000 and reach Mumbai or Ahmedabad?
The Indian Railways ferried more than 24 lakh migrant labour in the last two months and the bill was footed by the state and central governments. The reason: the labourers did not have the money.
Trains have always been consumer friendly. The milk, eggs and several essential commodities that we get at the present cost could be attributed to the Indian Railways. It is due to the subsidy and low cost of running trains. They may not clock 320 km that a bullet train can, albeit a few hours more time does a traditional train take but India would well do with these majestic trains who may not look as pretty as a bullet train with a sharp nose.
Many may not agree with Rahul Gandhi on several issues, but for once, one hopes his prophesy comes true.
