Hyderabad: Currently, traveling from Hyderabad to the nation’s financial capital, Mumbai, takes approximately 12 hours by road and nearly 15 hours by train. Plans are afoot to introduce the Hyderabad-Pune-Mumbai High-Speed Rail Corridor, which will enable passengers from Hyderabad to reach Mumbai in just three hours aboard a bullet train, travelling at a maximum speed of 300 km per hour.
The National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) recently informed the state government that the Detailed Project Report (DPR) has been finalised after completion of the survey.
The corporation stated that once the construction of the corridor is completed, the journey from Hyderabad to Mumbai via the bullet (high-speed) train will take a minimum of 2 hours 55 minutes and a maximum of 3 hours 13 minutes. The project features another interesting aspect – an underground stretch spanning 35.30 km that will be constructed across three specific locations in Maharashtra. In the Khandala Ghat section of this corridor, tunnels will be excavated through the hills at 13 different points, covering a total distance of 24 km.
The construction of the high-speed rail corridor will resemble the elevated tracks built on pillars, similar to the metro rail system in Hyderabad. This proposed high-speed rail corridor, designed to traverse hilly terrains, underground sections, and river crossings, boasts several unique features.
In the Union Budget presented on February 1, the Central Government announced seven high-speed rail corridor projects spanning across nine states, including three from Hyderabad. While the Hyderabad-Chennai and Hyderabad-Bengaluru corridors are currently in the survey phase, the survey for the Hyderabad-Pune-Mumbai project has been completed, and the NHSRCL has already prepared its DPR.
The total length of the Hyderabad-Pune-Mumbai high-speed corridor is 671 km. Of this, 93 km (14 percent) lies within Telangana, 121 km (18 percent) in Karnataka, and the largest segment, 457 km (68 percent), in Maharashtra.
