On Monday, Rail Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that they are confident of operating the country’s first bullet train between Surat and Bilimora in Gujarat by 2026, as good progress has been made in this direction. Vaishnaw is in Surat to check on the progress of the government’s ambitious Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project.

Good progress has been made in constructing the Ahmedabad-Mumbai high-speed rail infrastructure, and various work is progressing at high speed.

Bilimora is a town in the Navsari district of southern Gujarat. The project aims to run bullet trains between Ahmedabad and Mumbai at 320 km per hour on the High-Speed Rail (HSR) corridor, covering 508 km and 12 stations.

The train is expected to reduce travel time between the two cities to three hours from the current six hours.
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) provided 81% of the project cost, estimated at Rs 1.1 lakh crore. Vaishnaw said the pillars of the bullet train project had been built along the 61 km route, and about 150 km are under construction.

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Vaishnaw inspected the operation of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail corridor segmented foundry near Vaktana village in Choryasi taluka, Surat, and visited the Antroli railway station under construction for the project.