India's first bullet train between Mumbai-Ahmedabad progressing at pace

The 508-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail project, popularly known as the 'Bullet Train' project is going on at a good pace, said Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw after an onsite review last week.

Earlier in June, Vaishnaw announced that the country's first bullet train will be operational by the year 2026.

While Vaishnaw mentioned that good progress was being made, there has been a slight delay in the implementation of the project and that has resulted in the escalation of the expected cost of the nation's first "high-speed rail" to exceed Rs 1.6 lakh crore, GST excluded, while the anticipated cost was Rs 1.08 lakh crore in the 2015 feasibility study, as per a recent report. The delay has reportedly been caused by the Covid-19 pandemic as well as land acquisition issues.

As per reports, official data shows that till now 100% land has been acquired only in Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

While in Gujarat the land acquisition is around 98.9%, it's barely 73% in Maharashtra.

The Centre has been maintaining that delay in land acquisition in Maharashtra is the major contributor to the delay in the project.