Bullet trains are being planned in Andhra Pradesh. If everything goes well with an ambitious project on the cards of the State Government, the work for introducing India’s first bullet train between Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam via Vijayawada, will be grounded next year.

Travelling at a speed of 200 kmph, the hi-tech train will take just two hours to cover the 275-km distance between Vijayawada and Hyderabad which at present takes five hours. The service is proposed to be extended up to Chennai at a later stage.

Two other routes have been selected for the project to connect Hyderabad with Mumbai and Bangalore.

An elevated track for a length of 3,000 km will be built for the three “high speed corridors” for the bullet trains. A massive sum of Rs. 2 lakh crore will be spent on the project. “Nothing is impossible these days when private-public partnership is available,” Transport Minister K. Lakshminarayana said here on Thursday after Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy held detailed discussions with officials on the project.

The Minister told reporters that Dr. Reddy was so keen to ground the project next year that he had sought detailed project report within 10 days. He had already spoken to the top brass of the Railway Board three times on the proposal and taken the line that “either you build it or we will do it on our own.

” The Chief Minister planned to make a presentation on the high-speed train to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his visit to the State on July 31.