Economics project on bullet train
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By Jill Ward
India’s bullet train project is moving at the pace of a commuter train instead.
A year after the project was kicked off, only 0.9 hectares of land have been acquired out of the 1,400 hectares needed, according to the Indian government company leading the project. The $15 billion facility, the highlight of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s drive to upgrade infrastructure, is facing resistance from farmers unhappy with the compensation for land taken away from them. The planned 316-mile line linking the financial capital of Mumbai with the economic hub of Ahmedabad -- roughly the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco -- was meant to be a big leap from the trains of Indian Railways, Asia’s oldest network with over 165 years of history. At the current rate of land acquisition, the bullet train built with Japan’s ‘Shinkansen’ technology risks missing its 2023 completion target.