Dear friend, I find many persons which take a shot at loans taken for Bullet Train with an agrument that it should be better spent on the already crumbling IR network. They are 100% right that India very badly needs investment in augmenting/modernising existing network at a priority higher than Bullet trains.
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One thing they either don't know or they forget is, that the loan offered by Japan for bullet trains is almost interest free, at a token interest rate of 0.1% p.a., which has to be paid in 50 years and...
more... no payment needed for first 15 years! Japan is giving this extremely and unbelievably generous loan as a goodwill gesture to its friendly nation and most importantly to compete with its biggest enemy and competitor China. This generous loan is not available for upgradation of existing IR network.
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IR is performing badly due to mismanagement/governance, it does not mean that India should not go for high end railway technology. If India can become top player in a very hightech arena of Nuclear Technology, Space technology and missile technology then why it cannot become a leader in HST and Maglev technology? The present govt intend India to be so. Recent international seminar on HST technologies conducted in India shows seriousness of govt towards this motive. One necessary requirement for success of BT is, that it should be managed in the way Japan does it and not the IR way. If personnel for HST are recruited through outdated UPSC route, it shall spell disaster. Even corporations like KR, Delhi Metro are better managed than IR in-spite of govt interference. I think IR too should also be converted into such a corporation to minimise political interference.
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Bullet train is estimated to give a decent financial rate of return of 12% and is intended to attract most of its passengers from airlines and cars/buses, as bullet trains are are environmentally and logistically superior than these options. HST is not intended to attract paxs from conventional IR trains. They are supposed to give a big boost to the economic activities of the served cities and hence the prosperity of people and more taxes/ revenue to govt. Last govt have announced Bullet trains several times in budgets but could not implement it. When this govt has done it by through excellent diplomacy, and commitment for the development of nation, they are opposing this project tooth and nail. And when this project shall be successfully completed, then habitually they will claim that is our project, public must not go by words of politicians who have slippery tongue but interpret them with their intentions and actions.
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For remaining network, the investment is being arranged from separate costly loans which are available at very high interest rates. RM has substantially stepped up the investment in existing network which is more than double than the investment done by UPA RMs. The best part of the investment in IR today is that major part of investment is going in doubling of saturated main lines (highly profitable to IR), unlike during tenures of other RMs which invariably were wasting the precious IR resources to build new rail lines (mostly financially bleeding) in their home states or constituencies for personal political gains.
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Had the policy and pattern of investment being followed by current RM been followed by all the RMs since independence, almost all the main lines would have been with 4 tracks with a corridor each for freight & express trains and operating ratio nearing 80 instead of around 95 and avg speed 75kmph of SF trains and 50kmph of freight trains. The number of accidents happening in IR too would have been much lesser than present.
