The Diamond Quadrilateral is a project of the

Indian Railways Indian Railways (IR) is a statutory body under the ownership of Ministry of Railways, Government of India that operates India's national railway system. It manages the fourth largest national railway system in the world by size, with a tota ...

to establish a high-speed rail network in India. The Diamond Quadrilateral will connect the four mega cities of India, viz.

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

and

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, similar to the

Golden Quadrilateral The Golden Quadrilateral ( hi, स्वर्णिम चतुर्भुज, Svarnim Chaturbhuj; abbreviated GQ) is a national highway network connecting several major industrial, agricultural and cultural centres of India. It forms a ...

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...

system. High-speed train on Mumbai-Ahmedabad section will be the first high-speed train corridor to be implemented in the country. On 9 June 2014, the

President of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Murm ...

Pranab Mukherjee Dr. Pranab Mukherjee (11 December 193531 August 2020) was an Indian politician and statesman who served as the 13th president of India from 2012 until 2017. In a political career spanning five decades, Mukherjee was a senior leader in the Indi ...

, officially mentioned that the Government led by

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

will launch a Diamond Quadrilateral project of high-speed trains.

History

Prior to the 2014 general election, the two major national parties (

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the List of ruling p ...

and

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British E ...

) pledged to introduce high-speed rail. The INC pledged to connect all of India's million-plus cities by high-speed rail, whereas BJP, which won the election, promised to build the "Diamond Quadrilateral" project, which would connect the cities of

, and

via high-speed rail. This project was approved as a priority for the new government in the incoming president's speech. Construction of one kilometer of high speed railway track will cost – which is 10-14 times higher than the cost of construction of standard railway. India's

Union Council of Ministers The Union Council of Ministers Article 58 of the ''Constitution of India'' is the principal executive organ of the Government of India, which is responsible for being the senior decision making body of the executive branch. It is chaired by t ...

passed the proposal of Japan to build India's first high-speed railway on 10 December 2015. The planned rail will run approximately between

and the western city of

Ahmedabad Ahmedabad ( ; Gujarati: Amdavad ) is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 (per ...

at a top speed of .Japan's High-Speed Rail Breakthrough , The Diplomat
/ref> Under this proposal, the construction began in 2017 and is expected to be completed in the year 2022. The estimated cost of this project is and is financed by a low-interest loan from Japan.India Said to Pick Japan for High-Speed Rail Project – WSJ
/ref> Operation is officially targeted to begin in 2023, but India has announced intentions to attempt to bring the line into operation one year earlier. It will transport the passengers from Ahmedabad to Mumbai in just 3 hours and its ticket fare will be cheaper than air planes, that is, ₹2,500-₹3,000.

Current status

Map of India high-speed rail corridors according to National Rail Plan

Potential Diamond Quadrilateral HSR route map

As of July 2020, NHSRCL has floated almost 60% of tenders for civil works, and almost 60% of land is acquired for the first Mumbai-Ahmadabad corridor and the deadline of the project is December 2023. The National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited, the implementing body of the project, has planned 7 routes which are Delhi to Varanasi via Noida, Agra and Lucknow; Varanasi to Howrah via Patna; Delhi to Ahmadabad via Jaipur and Udaipur; Delhi to Amritsar via Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Jalandhar; Mumbai to Nagpur via Nasik; Mumbai to Hyderabad via Pune and Chennai to Mysore via Bangalore. According to reports, the NHAI will soon acquire land to lay tracks for high-speed trains along greenfield expressways for integrated development of the rail transport network in the country. to expedite the project, the Indian Railways along with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will begin the process of acquiring additional land. The decision to acquire additional land was taken during a recent meeting of a group of infrastructure ministers led by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. During the infra sector group meeting, it was decided that the NHAI will take over land acquisition and a 4-member committee was constituted to take this process forward. The four-member task force will work out the modalities for acquiring land and sharing the cost. It may be noted that the Indian Railways is in the process of preparing the blueprint of 7 high-speed rail routes in the country. As per reports, The railway board has also written to the NHAI and given details of seven high-speed rail corridors for running bullet trains for which the detailed project reports are being prepared. NHAI has been asked to depute a nodal officer for this purpose for better integration of the mammoth planning exercise. Railways plans to run bullet trains on 7 important new routes of the country.

References

External links

High Speed Rail Corporation of India Limited

Powering a high-speed dream - Sanjib Kumar Das, Gulf News

New Indian government moots high-speed rail network, Chris Sleight, KHL
{{High-speed rail in India High-speed rail in India Proposed infrastructure in India

History

Current status

See also

References

External links