One of Nirmala Sitharaman’s most interesting announcements during her Budget speech was the proposal to build several more high-speed rail (HSR) corridors across the country in addition to the existing under-construction Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail corridor. The new corridors, namely Mumbai-Pune, Pune-Hyderabad, Hyderabad-Chennai, Chennai-Bengaluru, Bengaluru-Hyderabad, Delhi-Varanasi and Varanasi-Siliguri, will have a massive capital expenditure outlay of INR 2.78 lakh crore for almost 4,000 kilometres of dedicated high-speed rail track and trainsets.

There have been some very valid questions asked about this massive capital outlay, given that it will take over a decade, although work on these corridors ought to go a lot faster than the time taken on the first corridor, as civil and railway engineers gain experience. Last year, while driving between Surat and Baroda, sections of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor were clearly nearing completion. Any visitor to Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) can see the construction of the massive new station complex underway.

These huge capital outlays for high-speed rail can transform India because they will make connectivity far better. The recent day-long traffic jam on the overcrowded Mumbai-Pune Expressway was proof that there is an urgent need for better connectivity........

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