Who delayed Mumbai's bullet train? FM Sitharaman tells the nation, counters Akhilesh on high-speed rail in UP

Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government delayed Mumbai’s bullet train project, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Wednesday, while responding to opposition questions on why the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed corridor was not yet operational. She also rejected Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s claim that Uttar Pradesh had not received high-speed trains. 

Responding to criticism over delays in the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train, Sitharaman said, “Before asking how long this will take, first think about the INDI alliance. Who delayed the project? Ask them. Ask (Shiv Sena) UBT. Why did they give the land late? Why did they increase the cost? Ask them, not me. If the land had been given on time, the bullet train would have been running by now. They did not give the land and deliberately caused losses to Mumbai.”

The Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project, announced in 2017, has faced delays over land acquisition hurdles. In April 2025, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the ambitious project connecting Mumbai with Ahmedabad could be completed by the end of 2028. He blamed the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government for the delay. 

The MVA government, led by Uddhav Thackeray, was in power from 2019 to 2022. Fadnavis said the previous government stalled the project. “Due to this, the project was delayed by 2.5 years. If we are investing Rs 70,000 to 80,000 crore on bullet trains and stopping the work for 2.5 years, who will have to bear the cost of the interest that is incurred?” he said.

He added that work in Gujarat progressed at a faster pace. “After the new government came to power, we gave the necessary approvals, and work started rapidly. In the last two and a half years, work is going on rapidly, and we are trying to finish the work within the necessary timeline,” Fadnavis said.

Earlier, India Today had reported in 2021 that a minister close to Uddhav Thackeray had said the bullet train was not the state government’s priority. Instead, the focus was on other infrastructure projects such as the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Expressway.

The Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC), ruled by the Shiv Sena at the time, passed a resolution in December 2020 refusing to hand over land earmarked for an on-ground bullet train station. Thane is the second station after BKC on the 508 km route. Palghar is the third station in Maharashtra. The project includes eight stations in Gujarat—Valsad, Navsari, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand, Kheda and Ahmedabad—and one station, Vapi, in Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

Sitharaman also addressed Akhilesh Yadav’s charge that there was no high-speed train in Uttar Pradesh. “This is not true that UP has not got the high-speed trains. Two high-speed corridors go through UP. First of all, Delhi-Varanasi. The first Vande Bharat Express went to UP, and that connected Kanpur and Prayagraj. And from Varanasi to Siliguri goes through UP. Besides this, Varanasi in railway is considered a connectivity hub. Trains coming from the east, west, and south connect here. The railway’s big hub is in Varanasi, because of which employment is being created, the network is increasing, and coaches are being built. The average annual railway budget has increased 18-fold in UP.”

In the Union Budget 2026, Sitharaman announced new high-speed rail corridors aimed at strengthening inter-city connectivity. She said the government will develop seven high-speed rail corridors between cities as ‘growth connectors’, namely i) Mumbai-Pune, ii) Pune-Hyderabad, iii) Hyderabad-Bengaluru, iv) Hyderabad-Chennai, v) Chennai-Bengaluru, vi) Delhi-Varanasi, vii) Varanasi-Siliguri.