A week after being appointed by the Narendra Modi government to head the committee to lay down standards for metro systems in the country, E Sreedharan, said, "bullet trains are only for the elite...India needs a safe railway system."
He told the Hindustan Times, bullet trains are "highly expensive and beyond the reach of the common people."
The Prime Minister's pet bullet train project is coming up between Mumbai and Ahmedabad at an estimated cost of Rs1.1 lakh crore. The project, with Japanese collaboration has already missed a deadline on land acquisition, amid stiff opposition from farmers, in Gujarat and Maharashtra is scheduled for completion by 2022.
Metros are increasingly becoming the lifeline of urban commuters and India has 490 km of metro lines in 10 different cities, with 600 km of new projects under construction in various cities.