High-speed rail project gains traction as State constitutes committee to study DMRC report

Hardly a week aft technocrat E. Sreedharan met Chief Minister V.D. Satheeshan, the State authorities has constituted an adept committee headed by Secretary, Transport (Railways), arsenic the convener to survey the interim study submitted by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) connected the projected Kerala high-speed obstruction task successful Kerala.

The committee, comprising J. Vinayan, (Railways), C. Veeramani (finance) and Sridhar Radhakrishnan (environment) arsenic adept members, volition undertake a broad introspection of the proposal, including method feasibility, fiscal viability, biology implications, implementation challenges and imaginable socio-economic benefits to the State. The committee volition besides taxable its remarks and recommendations wrong 3 weeks from the day of the bid constituting the committee.

N.S.K. Umesh, Officer connected Special Duty (OSD) to the Chief Minister, volition assistance the Transport Secretary (Railways) and facilitate the functioning of the committee. Mr. Sreedharan submitted an interim study prepared by the DMRC to the State authorities a week agone for the implementation of Kerala High-Speed Rail, a modular gauge corridor of 473.20 km from Thiruvananthapuram to Kannur.

The projected task envisions connecting Thiruvananthapuram with Kannur successful conscionable 3 hours and 30 minutes, envisaging the task arsenic the world’s archetypal greenish obstruction corridor. The enactment volition commencement from Poojappura successful the superior metropolis and terminate astatine Mundayad successful Kannur. The 473.20-km treble enactment from volition person 23 stations. The enactment volition beryllium afloat elevated but for a 6.5-km passageway successful Thiruvananthapuram city.

The maximum plan velocity of the trains volition beryllium 200 kmph, portion the maximum operational velocity volition beryllium 180 kmph and the mean commercialized speed, 140 kmph. The full task outgo is estimated astatine ₹60,000 crore, of which ₹36,000 crore volition beryllium contributed arsenic equity by the Central and State governments successful a 51:49 ratio. The remaining ₹24,000 crore is projected to beryllium raised done crowdfunding.