Alignment plans out for bullet trains from Bengaluru to Chennai and Hyderabad

Bengaluru: Three months after the Union Budget announced high-speed rail projects connecting Bengaluru to Hyderabad and Chennai, the Indian Railways has released alignments for both routes. 

An approximate alignment of the Bengaluru-Mysuru route, which was excluded from the budget, has also been given. 

According to the alignment, the Bengaluru-Chennai line (306 km) will start at Baiyappanahalli, pass through Whitefield, Kodihalli (near Hoskote) and Kolar (5 km from the town) in Karnataka, Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh, Parandur and Poonamalle in Tamil Nadu, and terminate at Chennai Central. 

The Parandur station in Kanchipuram district, where Tamil Nadu plans to build a second airport for Chennai, was not part of the initial alignment. The line will run for 100.7 km in Karnataka and require 1,358.96 hectares of land. 

Within Bengaluru, the corridor will pass through a 15.94-km tunnel while it will have elevated/at-grade tracks in other parts of the state. 

The Bengaluru-Hyderabad line (607.03 km) will have stations at Kodihalli, Devanahalli (near the Kempegowda International Airport) and Alipur (Chikkaballapur district) in Karnataka. It will run for 101.03 km in the state and require 237.5 hectares. 

The line will have stations at Hindupur, Duddebanda (near Penukonda), Anantapur, Gooty, Dhone, Kurnool, Mannanur (Nagarkurnool), Bharat City (a planned township near Hyderabad) and Hyderabad airport (Shamshabad) before terminating at Hyderabad. 

Railway activists are dismayed that neither corridor touches Majestic, Bengaluru’s key transit hub. The approximate alignment for the Bengaluru-Mysuru route (157.34 km) will include stations at Mandya, Ramanagara, Kengeri and Electronics City (near Huskur). The Ramanagara station was not part of the initial alignment. As per the alignment, the Mysuru line will join the Chennai line at Kodihalli. The Hyderabad-Pune route will have a station at Kalaburagi. 

An official from the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL), which will implement all the projects, said surveys were underway for all the lines. Kolar MP, M Mallesh Babu, said LiDAR surveys covering topographic data, and traffic and social and environmental impact assessment studies, had been completed in the Kolar district. 

“The required properties have been identified. Kolar will get one station. The groundwork is expected to start around 2027-28,” he told DH. 

Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar, the MP for Mysore-Kodagu, said the railway minister had given a positive response to including the Mysuru-Bengaluru route. “I have already requested the minister to extend it to Mysuru. All studies, including one by a German firm, have established that Mysuru should be part of this corridor. Mysuru ticks all the boxes, including economics. We are hopeful that a decision on including Mysuru will be taken soon,” he told this newspaper. 

In February, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that travel time on the Bengaluru-Chennai corridor would be one hour and 13 minutes and Bengaluru-Hyderabad would take two hours. The projects will feature B-28 trains, also called Bharat-made bullet trainsets, which BEML, the Bengaluru-based PSU, is manufacturing at a specialised complex. Bullet train projects have long gestation periods due to land acquisition hurdles, technical challenges and financing constraints. The 508-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor, India’s first, was approved in May 2014 and is expected to fully open only in December 2029.