Bullet train an exercise in vanity: Former PM Manmohan Singh on Modi's pet project

"An exercise in vanity." That's how former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today described the much-hyped bullet train project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, one of the many pet projects of his successor, Narendra Modi.

"Bullet train, launched with much fanfare, is an exercise in vanity," Singh said in a meeting at Ahmedabad, one of the two destinations of the Rs 1.1 lakh crore project, which is also India's first.

"Did PM consider the alternative of the high-speed train by upgrading broad gauge railways?" Manmohan Singh asked.

Singh also took a dig at the BJP by asking whether his criticism of the bullet train project makes him "anti-national".

"By questioning bullet trains, does one become anti-development? Does questioning GST and demonetisation make one a tax evader? This attitude of suspecting everyone to be a thief or anti-national, this low level rhetoric is damaging to democratic discourse," Singh quipped.

Launched with much fanfare in September this year by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the presence of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Ahmedabad, the government has set a deadline of August 15, 2022 for the Ahmedabad-Mumbai high-speed rail network to mark India's 75th year of Independence.

The train is expected to cover a distance of over 500 km between the two cities in less than three hours. Japan is financing 81 per cent of the Rs 1.08 lakh crore project at 0.1 per cent interest to be repaid over 50 years.

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