Bullet train deal likely during PM's Japan visit

NEW DELHI: India and Japan may forge a partnership for manufacturing the next generation E10 Shinkansen bullet trains in India, with an announcement likely during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Japan this week, people familiar with the matter said.

- Rezaul H Laskar and Rajeev Jayaswal

The collaboration will further strengthen India-Japan economic cooperation, and the two partners have agreed in principle on the joint manufacturing of the E10 Shinkansen, which is derived from the ALFA-X experimental train, the people said requesting anonymity.

The move will bolster the ongoing collaboration between the two countries on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai high speed railway project, which has a total length of 508 km.

“The project is in line with the success of the Maruti Suzuki joint venture that happened about four decades ago, but its scale and strategic importance is immense,” one of the people said, asking not to be named.

“This is an outcome of PM Modi’s vision and his friendship with Japan. The collaboration between the two partners has been scaled up from procuring bullet trains to jointly building them in India.”