New Delhi: The Centre has clarified that alignment studies for three proposed high-speed rail corridors linked to Hyderabad are currently underway and that it has not sent any land acquisition requisitions to the concerned state governments.
After meeting Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw here to discuss Hyderabad-Chennai, Hyderabad-Bengaluru and Hyderabad-Pune high-speed rail corridors, Union Coal Minister G Kishan Reddy noted that the minister clarified that no land acquisition requisition has been sent to the respective state governments.
“Hon’ble Railway Minister clarified that no land acquisition requisition has been sent to the respective state governments and that any land acquisition being carried out in the name of High-Speed Rail at this stage is illegal,” Reddy said on X.
He said alignment studies for all three corridors are currently underway and once alignment is finalised, details will be shared with respective state governments and farmers.
The clarification came amid land acquisition efforts by the Telangana government for rail corridor and other projects which faced resistance from farmers on Hyderabad outskirts.
Moreover, South Central Railway earlier posted the same video on the social media platform, saying Vaishnaw held a detailed discussion with Reddy regarding proposed alignment for high-speed rail connectivity linking Hyderabad with Chennai, Bengaluru and Pune.
Earlier in August, the government said Indian Railways incurred capital expenditure of over Rs 1.14 lakh crore or about 39 per cent of the budgetary allocation for 2026-27 till July.
In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Vaishnaw said the Centre had spent Rs 1,14,973 crore out of the budgetary allocation of Rs 2,93,030 crore for the current financial year. The minister said expenditure on safety-related activities has increased steadily over the years, rising from Rs 39,200 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 1,20,389 crore in 2026-27.
On Kavach — the indigenous Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system – the minister said Version 4.0 has been commissioned over 2,633 route kilometres as of July 31, covering key sections of the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah high-density corridors.
–IANS–
