Govt mulls making Patna a station on Varanasi-Kolkata high speed rail corridor

NEW DELHI: The government is considering making Patna one of the stations on the proposed 760-km, high-speed rail corridor between Varanasi and Kolkata, ET has learnt, a move that will give Bihar high-speed rail connectivity with Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

This was revealed in a recent tender document of the National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL), which was invited for the preparation of bids for the proposed high-speed rail corridor between Delhi and Amritsar that will pass through Chandigarh.

The document, which ET has reviewed, says NHSRCL is to invite bids for survey of four proposed high-speed rail corridors and mentions one of them as “Varanasi-Patna-Howrah”, specifying the alignment of this corridor for the first time.


The NHSCRL has already invited bids for preparation of detailed project report for the 865-km-long Delhi-Varanasi corridor, which will pass through the proposed Jewar International Airport in Noida and Lucknow, and this will join the proposed Varanasi-Patna-Howrah high-speed rail corridor.

Some of the country’s busiest rail routes pass through Bihar, where two chief ministers--Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad--have also been railway ministers.

The NHSCRL has also specified in the said document that the 711-km-long Mumbai-Hyderabad high-speed rail corridor will pass through Pune, while the 435-km-long Chennai-Mysore corridor will include the IT hub of Bengaluru.