Preparation of DPR begins for 865-km long Delhi-Varanasi high-speed rail corridor

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The National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) has started working on a detailed project report (DPR) for the proposed Delhi-Varanasi high-speed rail (HSR) corridor following directions by the central government.

The 865 kilometers long Delhi-Noida-Agra-Lucknow-Varanasi rail corridor is one of the eight HSR passageways. The other seven corridors are Delhi-Jaipur-Udaipur-Ahmedabad (886-km), Varanasi-Howrah (760-km), Mumbai-Nashik-Nagpur (753-km), Mumbai-Pune-Hyderabad (711-km), Ahmedabad-Mumbai (508-km), Delhi-Chandigarh-Ludhiana-Jalandhar-Amritsar (459-km) and Chennai-Bangalore-Mysore (435-km).

The proposed rail corridor between Varanasi and Howrah is the latest addition to the government’s HSR corridor plan.

The corridors have been proposed to optimise high-speed rail connectivity between major cities and give an impetus to the industrial sector, said a report by The Economic Times.

Work has already begun on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai corridor, said the report. It will see bullet trains running at 320 km per hour, it said.

After the Delhi-Varanasi HSR corridor will be ready a bullet train could reduce travel time to about four-and-a-half hours between Delhi and Varanasi which is the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said the report.

The NHSRCL has been entrusted by the Ministry of Railways to prepare DPR for the seven new corridors, including Delhi-Varanasi, Varanasi-Howrah, Mumbai-Nagpur, Delhi-Ahmedabad, Chennai-Mysore, Delhi-Amritsar, and Mumbai-Hyderabad, said the report quoting Sushma Gaur, additional general manager (corporate communication) at NHSRCL.

Earlier in July, NHSRCL had invited bids related to data collection, preliminary designs and survey work for the preparation of the DPR of the Delhi-Varanasi HSR corridor, said the report.

Currently, the company is collecting relevant data for the preparation of interim DPR, Gaur was quoted as saying. The location of stations will be proposed after survey reports and consultation with the government, she told the publication.