High-speed trains soon on track: Suresh Prabhu

Chennai: Railways is working with six global companies for the development of high-speed trains in India running at a speed between 350 and 600 kmph, Union minister of railways, Suresh Prabhu, said on Saturday.

“Of these six companies, we will select one and develop such trains that can travel beyond the 350 kmph speed limit and attain a speed of 600kmph,” he said. He added that this would be expected to materialise in the next 10 years.

“It is essential to capture the value chain of that economic activity by not by manufacturing, but by the development of the technology behind the product in India,” he said. “350kmph has been set as the limit of high-speed by Japanese, Chinese rail sectors, but we are looking beyond it. If we have to get into a new era, we need new ideas to develop these 600kmph trains.”

“Under, Make in India, we are still assembling parts here, but not developing products from scratch. The aim is to develop these trains here so that costs can be reduced and we could export them too,” he added.

Speaking at the Confederation of Indian Industry event on Saturday, he added that it should be the imperative of bodies like CII to strive at making good corporate strategies aiming at the development of multi-modal transport systems in all states.

He added that apart from Rs 8.50 lakh crore to be invested, an additional amount of Rs 85,000 crore has been invested for a dedicated freight corridor project, expected to be completed in 2019. The contract has been awarded to GE, Alstom for Rs 4,000 crore to make state-of-the-art locomotives and also such strategic investment will allow them to become the part of a global supply chain, the minister added.

He added that Railways is currently catching up on the lack of investment from the earlier political periods. One of the major aims of Railways currently, is energy and cost savings. “Last year, we saved Rs 3,500 crore from scrap. We aim to make a saving of Rs 41,000 crore in the next 10 years,” he said.