Metro Rail News October 2017

As per the estimation by the Japanese, the
project requires around 4,000 personnel under
several categories such as locomotive drivers,
guards, station staff, operation control centre
staff, maintenance personnel, signal
maintainers and electrical staff. There will be a
big depot at Sabarmati for periodic overhaul of
the trains, while a small depot at Thane will be
built for weekly and monthly maintenance.
Around 20,000-25,000 persons would be
required for construction of the project.
When exactly will the construction of
Ahmedabad-Mumbai high-speed train take
off?
The work of the training institute in Vadodara
has already kicked off and would be completed
by December 2020. It is the first thing to be
completed – for training the manpower. Most
of the other works such as laying viaducts [a
long elevated roadway consisting of a series of
short spans supported on arches or piers]
would start by September 2018.
Is it true that Japan’s financial aid to India is a tied
loan? Will Indian companies get enough
opportunities to participate in the high-speed rail
project? Kindly elaborate on the ‘Make in India’
factor.
The loan from Japan is not a tied loan. It is a special
loan. Japan has a tied loan system but for the
Ahmedabad-Mumbai high-speed train project, that is
not the case. It is being misconstrued by many. Out of
the 508-km length of the project, a 450-km stretch is
open to Indian contractors without any condition on
them to form a joint venture with the Japanese firms
for civil construction.
The estimated cost of civil construction of the project
is around 50-60 percent of the total project cost.
Whenever expertise is available within India, the work
will be done by Indian companies only.
The 21-km tunnelling work would be done by
Japanese companies as they have the expertise, but it
does not mean that the entire cost of tunnel work
would go to Japan. For instance, tunnel boring
© METRO RAIL NEWS | OCTOBER 2017 | WWW.METRORAILNEWS.IN
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