As stated by the Railway Minister, Suresh Prabhu, NITI Aayog has helped Indian Railways by providing ₹18,163 crore in order to increase the train speed to 160-200 km per hour on the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah corridors.
The 1,483 km Delhi-Mumbai route will cost ₹11,189 crore while the 1,525 km Delhi-Howrah route has an estimated cost of ₹6,974 crore. These routes pass through states like UP, MP, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Jharkhand.
Prabhu said, “The main outcome of the implementation of these projects is increase in the maximum speed of train on these routes to 160 km per hour. This will reduce the travel time of premium Rajdhani-type trains to 12 hours as against the present travel time of 15 hours 30 minutes and 17 hours respectively for Mumbai and Howrah Rajdhani”.