Travel between Delhi and Lucknow will be reduced to two hours and that between the national capital and Patna to 4.5 hours in the proposed bullet train project covering major cities in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Monday.
The minister said under the project, the estimated travel time between Delhi and Agra (200 km) will be 58 minutes.
Speaking virtually during the inauguration of a newly converted and electrified broad-gauge rail line on the Nepalganj Road-Nanpara-Bahraich section, Vaishnaw said that the proposed bullet train corridor will include Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Varanasi and Patna and connect these cities to Delhi. He said the proposed project will drastically cut travel time between the national capital and major cities of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Speaking after the launch of Semicon 2.0, the minister said the initiative will focus not only on semiconductor manufacturing but also on developing talent, chip design, equipment, materials, advanced packaging and research and development.
Earlier in the day, Vaishnaw said that India will develop another one lakh semiconductor engineers under the second phase of its semiconductor programme, as the government seeks to strengthen the country’s talent pool and build a complete semiconductor ecosystem.
“If the project materialises, it will be the next phase bullet train corridor in the country after the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor and the first to connect the National Capital with many cities of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar,” Vaishnaw said. “Now we have taken a target of one lakh more engineers to be developed,” Vaishnaw said, adding that the move assumes importance as the global semiconductor industry is expected to face a shortage of about one million workers by 2032.
