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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Bullet Train: Do we need it? -TR Raghunandan

Bullet Train: Do we need it? -TR Raghunandan

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published Published on Sep 24, 2017   modified Modified on Sep 24, 2017
-Deccan Herald

As a railway buff, I love the technology story of the bullet train. However, it is not appropriate for India, in the current configuration as negotiated by Prime Minister Narendra and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail line, for which they laid the foundation stone on September 14.

The Shinkansen bullet trains were introduced in Japan in 1964 and traversed the 500-plus kilometre distance between Tokyo with Osaka, the two biggest metropolises in Japan, in just 3 hours and 10 minutes. Japan took a giant step from slow Meter gauge trains to a new generation of futuristic locomotives that put it in an exclusive niche among railways globally. The first comparable trains elsewhere would arrive in Europe only in 1985, 21 years after the Shinkansen was launched.

The Shinkansen was disruptive technology at its best. Contemporary aircraft were no match for it as they used noisy, fuel-guzzling jet engines, and airports required large swathes of land, which the Japanese people resisted. The Shinkansen was an immediate and sustained success, crossing the 100 million passenger mark in less than 3 years and one billion passengers by 1976. Japan is highly urbanised, and the Shinkansen trains depart at intervals of a few minutes, connecting densely populated cities. However, in the more than 50 years of its existence, the superfast track mileage of the basic spine of the Shinkanshen has increased only five-fold, from 515 km in 1964 to 2,764 km currently.

With a few exceptions, super-express trains worldwide are currently proving to be economically non-feasible, due to the strides made by aviation technology over the last 50 years.

Today’s turbofan-propelled aircraft have high payloads, better fuel economy and are quiet, thus being much more economical than greenfield bullet train projects. The Japanese never had to consider competition from the aviation sector when they initiated the bullet train project. Clearly, Indian bullet trains are never going to be economical compared to air travel. A feasibility report by IIM-Ahmedabad indicates that the bullet train will have to run 100 trips a day to break even.

Much is made of the bullet train being largely paid for by a generous loan from the Japanese, at marginal interest rates and repayable over a half century. While at first sight these terms seem too good to be rejected, a closer look tempers the euphoria. All the technology is going to be procured entirely from Japanese suppliers. So, at least in the short term, there is not going to be any technology transfer. The Yen will come in, and go back into Japanese hands. Even if interest rates are low, the principal has to be returned in Yen and the exchange rate risk is entirely to be borne by India. While fluctuations of the exchange rates over 50 years cannot be predicted, going by experience, it is not unreasonable to assume that it may add a 10% cost to the return of the principal, rendering to naught the negligible interest rate offered.

Given these facts, there is not the slightest doubt that our government is rushing headlong into buying a white elephant. The fact that the elephant is being paid for by a loan given to us by its seller does not change the mathematics of profitability. It only transfers the responsibility to pay for our indulgences onto our unsuspecting children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

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Deccan Herald, 24 September, 2017, http://www.deccanherald.com/content/634608/bullet-train-do-we-need.html


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