State Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has announced that the Maharashtra government has given all necessary approvals to go ahead with the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project. Fadnavis told a press conference after the state cabinet meeting that the project has got all the necessary approvals from Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
He said some of the unresolved concerns include land acquisition and clearing of forests. The estimated cost of the project is Rs 1,10,000 crore, of which Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is providing funding for Rs. 88,000 crores. Thane and Palghar districts have acquired over 70 per cent of the land required in Maharashtra for the project.
The previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray did not take any steps to speed up the project. Thackeray instead asked the railway ministry to build a high-speed train corridor between the cities of Pune and Nagpur.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his then Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe laid the foundation stone for the bullet train project in Ahmedabad in September 2017. The train is expected to cover a distance of over 500 km in about two hours.