Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Sunday announced that the proposed South Bullet Train corridor would connect Bengaluru with Hyderabad, Amaravati and Chennai, speaking at the flagging off of the Vande Bharat Sleeper service between Bengaluru and Mumbai on the occasion of Karnataka Rajyotsava. Vaishnaw said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had approved the South Bullet Train corridor, which would integrate major technology and economic centres in the region and create a multiplier effect for southern states, BizzBuzz reported.

Source: BizzBuzz

He said the proposed corridor would significantly reduce travel time, with the journey between Bengaluru and Chennai expected to take just 73 minutes and Bengaluru to Hyderabad around two hours and 10 minutes. "These two cities, Bengaluru and Chennai, will become one city," he said, adding that the connectivity would strengthen economic integration among major cities in southern India.

Source: BizzBuzz

73 minutesProposed Bengaluru-Chennai bullet train journey
2 hours 10 minutesProposed Bengaluru-Hyderabad journey
4 citiesBengaluru, Hyderabad, Amaravati, Chennai
4,000 kmBullet train corridors Vaishnaw said the PM has approved in all

Vaishnaw said that as India moved towards the goal of Viksit Bharat, the Prime Minister had approved 4,000 km of bullet train corridors, and another 3,000 km would be announced in the coming days. He expressed confidence that the proposed Bengaluru-Pune bullet train corridor, which would cover the northern parts of Karnataka, would also become a reality, BizzBuzz and The Daily Jagran reported.

Source: The Daily Jagran

The minister also said a Vande Bharat train service between Bengaluru and Mangaluru would be introduced in the coming weeks, after electrification and testing work on the route is completed. "We will have a Mangaluru-Bengaluru Vande Bharat train. That will connect the entire region with very good, high-class connectivity," he said. He also announced plans for another Vande Bharat Sleeper service connecting Bengaluru with northern Karnataka via Hubballi, onward to Pune and Mumbai.

Source: BizzBuzz

What the approval does and does not yet mean: the February Union Budget already listed seven bullet train corridors, including Chennai-Bengaluru, Hyderabad-Bengaluru and Hyderabad-Chennai, spanning nearly 4,000 km together and expected to attract investments of approximately Rs 16 lakh crore; Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh's planned capital, was not on the Budget list. The Railways Ministry told the Lok Sabha in a written answer on August 5 that stations, investment and length for the corridors can be firmed up only after detailed project reports are finalised, and that sanctioning a corridor depends on the DPR outcome, techno-economic feasibility studies and financing. No finished project report, formal sanction or cost for the southern network as Vaishnaw described it on Sunday has been published, Transclew reported, drawing on PTI and Moneycontrol reports of the minister's remarks.

Source: Transclew (PTI, Moneycontrol, Railways Ministry Lok Sabha answer)

What happens next: a sanction with a cost attached - the step the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor took in 2015 - is the document that would turn Sunday's announcement into a funded project. Until a DPR and sanction appear, the 73-minute Bengaluru-Chennai figure remains the minister's stated target for the proposed corridor, not a timetable.

Source: Transclew