India set to ‘miss’ bullet train project
16 dead as bus overturns
PALGHAR, India/Tokyo, June 13, (Agencies): India is set to miss a December deadline to acquire land for a Japan-backed $17 billion bullet train project following protests by fruit growers, government officials said, likely delaying one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s most ambitious projects.
Modi’s office is now monitoring the project weekto-week, as Indian officials seek to reassure Tokyo that the hurdles can be overcome through intense negotiations with sapota and mango growers in the western state of Maharashtra.
Protests, backed by local politicians, have flared up in recent months against attempts to secure sections of a 108-km (67-mile) stretch, which is around one-fifth of the entire bullet train corridor connecting Mumbai with Ahmedabad, the largest commercial city in Modi’s home state of Gujarat.
“I’ve worked hard for three decades to develop this plantation, and they are asking me to hand over this land,” sapota farmer Dashrat Purav, 62, said as he showed his orchard in the town of Palghar, a three-hourdrive north of Mumbai.
“I haven’t worked hard to surrender land for the project. I did that for my children.”
Purav said he would sell his land only if at least one of his two unemployed sons was promised a government job.
Protests against land acquisitions are common in India, where tens of millions of farmers till small holdings. A planned $44 billion refinery to be run by a consortium including Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil producer, is also struggling to secure land in Maharashtra.
“Land acquisition for any project is complex in India,” said Dhananjay Kumar, spokesman for the National High Speed Rail Corp Ltd (NHSRCL) that is overseeing the project. “Here also we are facing difficulty because of so much resistance.”
Failure to procure the bullet train land by the deadline would delay disbursal of soft-loans by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), a government development body, which is reviewing the project next month, said two senior officials with the state-run Indian Railways, declining to be named.
A JICA spokeswoman said that India must create relocation plans for local residents and make them public in order to enter into a loan agreement covering the main part of the bullet train project.
Contract
“It is possible that it takes time to sign a contract as India takes proper and careful measures in line with JICA’s guidelines for environmental and social considerations,” she said.
NHSRCL’s Kumar, said in a statement on late Tuesday that the sanction of the loan by JICA was not linked to the land acquisition.
To assuage Japan’s concerns, Indian officials have sought a meeting this month with transport ministry officials in Tokyo, one of the Indian officials said. India wants the project’s completion target to be advanced by a year to 2022, the 75th year of India’s independence.
NHSRCL said in its statement that no such meeting has been requested by India.
A Japanese transport ministry official who deals with the bullet train project said that Indian officials had told them that “they can manage” the land acquisition.
“We will continue to work together with the Indian government to bring this project forward with an aim to start operation in 2023,” the official said.
Japan is majority-funding the train project through a 50-year loan. Japanese companies such as Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corp, JFE Holdings, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Toshiba Corp and Hitachi are likely to supply at least 70 percent of the core components of the rail line, sources told Reuters in January.
NHSRCL, a joint venture between the Ministry of Railways and states involved in the project, said at the time that procurement from Japan would be only 18 percent of the total project cost.
Modi has called the project crucial for his pet “Make in India” campaign aimed at lifting the share of manufacturing in India’s $2 trillion economy. The government also hopes to generate hundreds of jobs through the train project, and hence is pushing hard to finish it on time.
To sweeten the terms for people opposed to selling their land, Indian Railways has put its weight behind NHSRCL, pledging funds from its own welfare scheme to build schools and community halls, one of the officials said. NHSRCL said it would be using its own funds for any such welfare scheme.
16 die as tourist bus overturns:
Police say at least 16 people were killed when a speeding tourist bus overturned after hitting a concrete road divider in northern India.
Police officer Ajay Shanker Rai says another 17 people were injured in the accident on Wednesday near Mainpuri, a town in Uttar Pradesh state.
The injured have been hospitalized with three of them in critical condition.
Rai says the bus overturned as the driver lost control at a sharp bend.
The occupants were returning to their hometown of Farrukhabad after visiting Jaipur, a city known for forts, museums and gardens in western Rajasthan state.
India has the world’s deadliest roads, with more than 110,000 people killed annually. Most crashes are blamed on reckless driving, poorly maintained roads and aging vehicles.
Fire breaks out in skyscraper:
A fire official says a major fire has broken out on the 33rd floor of an upscale residential apartment building in Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital.
The official says nine fire engines were trying to douse the flames leaping from the top floor of the building. A plume of smoke engulfed the area, propelled by a strong sea breeze.
The cause of Wednesday’s fire is not immediately known. No injuries have been reported so far.
In December, a massive late-night fire in a restaurant at a Mumbai complex killed 15 people.