India seeks China's help for speeding-up of Bengaluru-Chennai train corridor

Bengaluru, Apr 16: India has sought China's assistance to speed up Bangalore-Chennai railway corridor besides redevelopment of Agra and Jhansi railway stations, a senior Indian official said on Sunday.

The proposal was made at the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) held here between the two countries.

"We offered them speeding up of Bangalore-Chennai railway corridor," Niti Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Sunday.

The SED was held between delegations headed by Kumar and He Lifeng, the chairman of China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

The proposal was made for increasing the speed of the corridor to 150 kmph.

India previously made a proposal to China for the redevelopment of Agra and Jhansi railway station. It has been reemphasised at Sunday's talks, officials said.

The Chinese side will respond after considering the proposals, they said.

Kumar said it was pointed out to the Chinese side that the railway station development plan is a big one involving about 600 of them. They can bid for any of them, he said.

However, there was no discussion in the just concluded SED about the collaboration to build high-speed trains by China in India, he said.

China has been expressing interest to take up high-speed train corridors in India and began conducting a feasibility study for New Delhi and Chennai high-speed train corridor.

The first high-speed train corridor in India between Mumbai and Ahmedabad has been bagged by Japan.

China has the world's longest high-speed rail network, with 22,000 km within the country linking various top cities.