NGO for extending ‘Bullet Train Project’ to city airport

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 27

After National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) allotted Aarvee-GSL Associates as the surveying company to prepare the final alignment design, including an aerial LiDAR survey, for the DPR in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab for the ambitious 465-km-long Delhi-Chandigarh-Ludhiana-Amritsar high-speed “Bullet Train Project”, city-based NGO Amritsar Vikas Manch (AVM) has urged the government to extend it to Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport.

It has urged the Ministry of Railways to consider starting and termination alignment for the DPR study of the bullet train to the airport to further bolster the connectivity. The NHAI has already decided to connect the city airport with the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway.

In a communique to Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, NGO secretary Yogesh Kamra said if this technological marvel high-speed bullet train was linked with the airport, it would become an intermodal point where air-road-train transfer all could happen seamlessly.

“More than 120 airports in the world already have rail connectivity and further 300 airports are building the same for future,” said Kamra, who is also a member of the Airport Advisory Committee (AAC).

This would provide many benefits like ease of travel, no wastage of time and reduction in pollution, besides connecting major cities of the state — Mohali, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Chandigarh, etc — via a safe, fast all-weather integrated transportation infrastructure.

It would also bring respite to road commuters as the connectivity would provide easy access to all parts of the city though the proposed outer ring roads.