India’s first bullet train, being built on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route, will begin commercial operations from August 15, 2027, starting with the Surat-Bilimora stretch, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw
has announced.
The announcement comes even as the bullet train project
authority battles a potential Rs 40,000 crore crisis over land acquisition compensation which could jeopardise the corridor’s future.The Rs 40,000 Crore Roadblock
According to The Times of India, the chief project manager of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (bullet train) Project has approached the Gujarat High Court, flagging a potential blowout in the Rs 1.1-lakh crore bullet train budget after the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Authority (LARRA) sharply raised compensation payouts to landowners.
Enhanced compensation ordered by LARRA in January and February this year alone could add Rs 40,000 crore to the project’s cost, advocate general Kamal Trivedi submitted before the court, warning of consequences “endangering continuation of the project”. The court has since admitted three appeals filed by the project authority against LARRA’s orders, covering land parcels in Surat and Bharuch districts.
At the centre of the dispute is a plot in Ochhan village in Bharuch’s Amod taluka, acquired following a 2018 notification under the land acquisition law. According to the TOI report, the acquisition authority had originally fixed compensation at Rs 50 per square metre in 2020, valuing one parcel at Rs 85.86 lakh. After the landowner sought a revision, LARRA raised the rate nearly tenfold to Rs 660 per square metre, pushing the payout for the same land to Rs 8.46 crore.
The project authority has contested LARRA’s methodology, arguing that the tribunal wrongly benchmarked rates against Simartha village, which is located 14km from the acquired land, instead of relying on sale records from villages closer to Ochhan. LARRA had applied Simartha’s jantri rate and layered on a 10% annual escalation linked to a 2013 land deal tied to the Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway to arrive at the enhanced figure, the report said.
A bench of Justice Ilesh Vora and Justice RT Vachhani has issued notices in the matter and posted it for further hearing on August 5, when the court will weigh whether to stay LARRA’s order and consider how much of the enhanced compensation the authority is willing to deposit in the interim.
Trivedi told the court that 85 similar appeals are in the pipeline across central and south Gujarat, with the cumulative compensation liability, including interest, expected to touch nearly Rs 40,000 crore, Times of India reported.
Minister Confirms Phase-Wise Launch From 2027
Even as the compensation dispute plays out in court, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw used a public address in Hyderabad to confirm that the 508-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train Corridor will open in stages starting 2027.
The Surat-Bilimora section will be the first to go live, followed by extensions to Vapi, Ahmedabad, Thane, and eventually the full Mumbai-Ahmedabad stretch.
“That is the phase-by-phase, section-by-section opening that will start from next year onwards,” Vaishnaw told the gathering.
The minister pegged overall project completion at around 80%, and said India’s first bullet train will eventually run at speeds up to 320kmph.
Vaishnaw also announced three new bullet train corridors linking Hyderabad to Pune, Chennai and Bengaluru, positioning the city as a future bullet train hub.
The Pune-Hyderabad leg is projected to take just two hours, while Hyderabad-Mumbai and Hyderabad-Chennai journeys would take under three hours each.
He added that the Centre has allocated Rs 5,400 crore for railway projects in Telangana as part of the broader push.
