New Delhi, October 10 (IANS). Issuing a clarification, the Central Government said that currently a study is going on regarding the proposed high-speed rail corridor connected to Hyderabad and no demand related to land acquisition has been sent to the state government.
After meeting Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in the national capital to discuss Hyderabad-Chennai, Hyderabad-Bengaluru and Hyderabad-Pune high-speed rail corridors, Union Coal Minister G. Kishan Reddy said that the Railway Minister has clarified that no request for land acquisition has been sent to the concerned state governments.
“The Railway Minister has clarified that no request for land acquisition has been sent to the respective state governments and any acquisition of land in the name of high-speed rail at this stage is illegal,” Reddy said on social media platform 'X'.
He said the alignment study for the three corridors is currently underway and once the alignment is finalised, the information will be shared with the respective state governments and farmers.
This clarification comes at a time when the Telangana government is trying to acquire land for the rail corridor and other projects, which is being protested by farmers on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
Apart from this, South Central Railway had earlier posted the same video on social media platforms. It said Vaishnav discussed in detail with Reddy the proposed route of high-speed rail connectivity connecting Hyderabad to Chennai, Bengaluru and Pune.
Earlier in August, the government had said that Indian Railways had incurred capital expenditure of more than Rs 1.14 lakh crore till July, which is about 39 per cent of the budgeted amount for 2026-27.
In a written reply in the Lok Sabha, Vaishnaw said the central government has spent Rs 1,14,973 crore out of the Rs 2,93,030 crore budgeted for the current financial year. The minister said that expenditure on security-related works has increased continuously, from Rs 39,200 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 1,20,389 crore in 2026-27.
Regarding the indigenous Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system 'Kavach', the Minister said that till July 31, its version 4.0 has been implemented on 2,633 route kilometers. This includes important parts of high traffic corridors like Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah.
–IANS
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