DERAILED DREAMS
The bullet train runs into political opposition in Maharashtra and casts a shadow over Fadnavis’s pet project to attract global investors
Akey approval for the MumbaiAhmedabad high-speed train project arrived just in time. Hours before Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s aircraft took off for Ahmedabad on September 14, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis issued an order to hand over a 0.9 hectare plot in Mumbai’s BandraKurla Complex (BKC) to the railways for construction of a terminus for the project. The next day, Abe and Prime Minister Modi laid the foundation stone at the other end of the line, 508 km away, in Ahmedabad.
Once the project is completed in 2022, the high-speed train will shuttle between the two cities in two hours. Reason Kishan Solanki, a diamond merchant who flies between Mumbai and Surat twice a week, can’t wait for the bullet train. “When the train [is operational], I will reach Surat in the time it takes me to reach Mumbai airport,” he says.
The project, however, has triggered a political tug-of-war in Maharashtra, with every party of note arguing that the rail link could cause India’s financial capital to lose its pre-eminence to
Ahmedabad. It is being claimed that the bullet train will benefit Gujarat at the cost of Mumbai, whose infrastructure is in bad shape. The Rs 1.10 lakh crore project has drawn accusations of misplaced priorities—high-speed rail over rail safety, amplified by the Elphinstone Road railway station stampede in Mumbai on September 29, which claimed 23 lives. To assuage public anger, the BJP government roped in the army to build pedestrian overpasses at Curry Road, Elphinstone Road and Ambivali stations.
The opposition wants the bullet train funds to be used to strengthen Mumbai’s local train network. But the state government has made it clear that foreign funds must be used to create new infrastructure.
Fadnavis told india today his focus is on creating a strong public transport network in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, in the form of six metro lines. He says the first metro will be operational by 2019, the year Lok Sabha and Maharashtra assembly elections are due.
It has emerged that the bullet train project will chip away at Fadnavis’s dream project—the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). The 0.9 hectares handed over for the bullet train terminus was part of a 50 hectare plot earmarked for the Rs 70,000 crore IFSC, which will have offices and meeting halls on the lines of the World Trade Center. It is expected to boost international business and projected to create 1.5 million jobs. The project has been refused Special Economic Zone (SEZ) status by the Union government. SEZ status would have allowed IFSC to offer tax sops to international investors. Fadnavis, however, says: “I can assure you that IFSC will come up at BKC itself. We have found a solution.”
Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray argues the bullet train will encourage financial companies to shift business to Gujarat, where office space is cheaper than Mumbai. He claims the Gujarat government’s financial hub at Gandhinagar, the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT), will be the real beneficiary of the high-speed train project. Data seems to bear out his position. Office space in GIFT is Rs 1,200 per sq. feet compared to Rs 35,000 per sq. feet in BKC. While real estate prices in GIFT have remained constant since 2007, they are likely to rise further in BKC by 2022.
A member of the IFSC governing council dismisses Thackeray’s speculation. Big companies, he says, might shift backroom operations to GIFT, but their headquarters will be in Mumbai. “They might buy 50,000 sq. feet in GIFT, but they will surely buy at least 5,000 sq. feet in IFSC,” he says. International investors see Mumbai as a cosmopolitan city—unlike Ahmedabad, he adds.
An official in the Maharashtra chief minister’s office says Fadnavis’s opposition to the bullet train terminus was a bargaining tactic. Fadnavis wanted the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which is lending Rs 80,000 crore for the bullet train project at an interest rate of 0.1 per cent, to offer a similar loan for another bullet train route—between Mumbai and Nagpur, Fadnavis’s hometown. The state government has conducted an initial study for the project, which will connect Mumbai and Nagpur through Nashik, Aurangabad and Amravati. Though transport minister Diwakar Raote has made public the state’s own bullet train plan, Fadnavis denies reports that JICA has been approached for funding.
Fadnavis has claimed that Maharashtra’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) will get a boost from the bullet train project. For that to happen, he must first clear the tracks of all political opposition.