Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav has blamed the then Uddhav Thackeray government of Maharashtra for the slow pace of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious bullet train project.
He said that if the Thackeray government had given its permission sooner, a lot of progress would have been made by now in the country’s first bullet train project. He said that running of bullet train will bring economic progress.
While inspecting the Bullet Train project work, Vaishnav said the Surat-Bilimora section on the 508-km long corridor between Mumbai and Ahmedabad could be operational by July-August 2026.
He said, after this, operations will start on other sections one after the other. He also informed that there will be ‘limited stop’ and ‘all stop’ services in the bullet train corridor.
The Railway Minister said trains with limited stops will cover the distance between Mumbai and Ahmedabad in just two hours, while other services will take around 2 hours 45 minutes. There will be a total of 12 stations under this project. It is being implemented by National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL).
Railway Minister Vaishnav said, “If the then Uddhav Thackeray government had given all the permissions quickly, this project would have progressed a lot by now.” He said that as soon as the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis (Shiv Sena-BJP) government was formed in the state, permissions were given within 10 days.
In the year 2022, Shiv Sena was divided after Shinde’s rebellion, due to which the Maha Vikas Aghadi government led by Uddhav Thackeray fell.
After this, Shinde formed a government in alliance with BJP and became the Chief Minister, and Devendra Fadnavis took the charge of Deputy Chief Minister.
Ashlini Vaishnav said that unfortunately the Thackeray government delayed the project a lot, but they will now try to make up for it.