The Indian Railways’ ambitious project of reducing travel time by interconnecting four major metros - Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata - with high-speed network of trains running at 160 kmph is looking at an August 2022 launch, sources said. The current average speed of trains on this network is around 88-90 kmph. “We are still finalising the blueprint and efforts are on to officially launch the project by August 2022 to coincide with the celebrations around India’s 75th year of Independence. However, everything depends on how we manage to meet every deadline set for the project”, a railway official said. Sources in the ministry say that an extra budgetary allocation of around Rs 36,000 crore will be required for the project.

Source: Hindustan Times November 30, 2017 11:03 UTC