Japan is a global leader in the field of Technology. Japan is well known for bullet trains, the country has some of the fastest bullet trains in the world. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shown interest in getting Japanese bullet trains to India and recently a deal has been signed between two nations in which Japan would set up a bullet train line between Ahmadabad and Mumbai, the cost of this project is estimated to ₹98,000 crore.
₹98,000 crore will be spent on a railway line between the two cities whose length will be around 530 kilometers. It will bring down the travel time to 2 hours from the current 8 hours. However looking at the cost of the project, when the trains are up and running, the ticket prices for the trains have got to be very high. So high that it will more than the airfare between the two cities.
The time taken to fly between the two cities is around 1 hour 10 minutes. So people who can afford to use bullet trains already have a faster mode of transportation than bullet trains. So this raises serious questions regarding the economic viability of the project. The present bullet train project may not succeed at all.
The quality of railway transportation in India is not very good. The train fares have been increased but hardly anything has been done to uplift the quality of services offered by the Indian Railways. It would have been much better if the money was spent to improve the current railway infrastructure than spend it on a project that is aimed at the rich.
India does have a lot to learn from Japan. After the second world war, Japan was completely devastated. But the Japanese rose back as a global technology and economic superpower. Japan relentlessly focused on science and technology. A lot of research in the field of science and technology is done in Japan. India has to learn this from Japan. I just hope instead of bullet trains Modi actually invested in building excellent research and development centres in India.
Japan is a nation with very little corruption in the government. So can Modi emulate the Japanese and remove corruption from India as well? Since he has become the Prime Minister of India, the amount of corruption has not changed at all.
Japan is a nation that achieved tremendous economic success in spite of limited natural resources. India has far more resources than Japan however in the first 68 years after her independence, India stays way behind Japan. Huge population of India lives under poverty line. While poverty is virtually non existent in Japan.
The above portion was written yesterday. However I got some more information about the project from the Huffington post article.
According to the above mentioned article, Japan will give a loan of almost ₹80,000 crore to India at 0.1% interest, it will have a moratorium of 15 years - which means the loan repayment can start after 15 years of taking the loan. Also, the loan repayment period will be 50 years. If we take inflation into account, the cost of things and correspondingly incomes are going to go up. So by then when the loan repayment period begins, the tickets, I guess will be quite affordable to most people.
However there is always a risk. What if there is some destructive technology that makes travel even faster and cheaper, with science and technology, you never know what's coming next.
₹98,000 crore will be spent on a railway line between the two cities whose length will be around 530 kilometers. It will bring down the travel time to 2 hours from the current 8 hours. However looking at the cost of the project, when the trains are up and running, the ticket prices for the trains have got to be very high. So high that it will more than the airfare between the two cities.
The time taken to fly between the two cities is around 1 hour 10 minutes. So people who can afford to use bullet trains already have a faster mode of transportation than bullet trains. So this raises serious questions regarding the economic viability of the project. The present bullet train project may not succeed at all.
The quality of railway transportation in India is not very good. The train fares have been increased but hardly anything has been done to uplift the quality of services offered by the Indian Railways. It would have been much better if the money was spent to improve the current railway infrastructure than spend it on a project that is aimed at the rich.
India does have a lot to learn from Japan. After the second world war, Japan was completely devastated. But the Japanese rose back as a global technology and economic superpower. Japan relentlessly focused on science and technology. A lot of research in the field of science and technology is done in Japan. India has to learn this from Japan. I just hope instead of bullet trains Modi actually invested in building excellent research and development centres in India.
Japan is a nation with very little corruption in the government. So can Modi emulate the Japanese and remove corruption from India as well? Since he has become the Prime Minister of India, the amount of corruption has not changed at all.
Japan is a nation that achieved tremendous economic success in spite of limited natural resources. India has far more resources than Japan however in the first 68 years after her independence, India stays way behind Japan. Huge population of India lives under poverty line. While poverty is virtually non existent in Japan.
The above portion was written yesterday. However I got some more information about the project from the Huffington post article.
According to the above mentioned article, Japan will give a loan of almost ₹80,000 crore to India at 0.1% interest, it will have a moratorium of 15 years - which means the loan repayment can start after 15 years of taking the loan. Also, the loan repayment period will be 50 years. If we take inflation into account, the cost of things and correspondingly incomes are going to go up. So by then when the loan repayment period begins, the tickets, I guess will be quite affordable to most people.
However there is always a risk. What if there is some destructive technology that makes travel even faster and cheaper, with science and technology, you never know what's coming next.
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