September 11, 2017 TnH Global

Sanjeev Sinha named Adviser for Ahmedabad-Mumbai Bullet Train Project

Sanjeev Sinha, former Tata executive working in Tokyo and first IIT-ian from Barmer, has been appointed as the advisor for India’s long-awaited project of Bullet Train. The bullet train, being developed by Japan Railways is aimed to connect Ahmedabad and Mumbai at an estimated cost of Rs 98,000 crore. It has to be noted that eighty-one per cent of the project cost will be in the form of a loan from Japan. As per reports, the groundbreaking ceremony (bhoomi-pujan) for the project will be held on September 14 at a ground near the Sabarmati railway station in the city where Prime Ministers of India and Japan, Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe will flag off the project. Both the leaders are expected to stay in Ahmedabad for three days, starting from September 13.

Sinha, hailing from Barmer Rajasthan is a graduate of IIT Kanpur and a prominent Indian resident of Japan for 21 years. After his integrated masters in Physics and working in Indian conglomerate Godrej, Sinha came to Japan to join GenTech for R&D in Artificial Intelligence in 1996 leading to now Mobileye, world’s leading Automated Driving Systems Company started in Japan-Israel collaboration. Sinha was quoted by ANI saying that given the safety issues of Indian Railways we can learn from Japanese Shinkansen which has a fabulous record of zero fatal accidents in its operations over more than 50 years despite very intricate passenger friendly operations amidst earthquakes, typhoons and a very difficult hilly terrain of Japan.

The long-awaited Bullet Train project will start from Ahmedabad and will cover 508 kilometers via Sabarmati, Surat, and Vadodara to reach Mumbai. Over two-third of the project will be in Gujarat and rest in Maharashtra. The most anticipated project is expected to get ready by May 2023. Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project is being developed by a consortium of 6 Japanese companies under the aegis of Japan Railways Group. The funding for this project comes as the part of a low-interest loan extended to India by Japan. As per reports by Economic Times, an interest rate of 0.1% over a 50-year term and repayment moratorium for the first 15 years, the funding from Japan for the High-Speed Rail, called Shinkansen in Japan, is almost like a grant based on standard financial valuation calculations.

The appointment of Sinha as Advisor to Japan Railways followed the launch of Sinha’s third book “Amazing India Business” published in Japanese by Japan’s largest economic publications Nikkei. The Ahmedabad-Mumbai Shinkansen Project is also poised to be such a holistic collaboration model for a large regional-urban development, with huge benefits for the masses. To support the huge technology collaboration efforts Sinha is also setting up an India Japan Technology Collaboration Fund as President of Research Institute of Next Generation AI, nicknamed RingAI.jp based in Tokyo.

News Source: www.india.com