Bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad: India should be courageous and take the leap

By Jai Mrug

The High Speed Rail (HSR) between Mumbai and Ahmedabad has generated several extreme opinions. What we need to look at is not just the economics of the rail line and it’s so called viability, or the ‘Make in India’ push it will give, but also the overall economic regeneration potential it can usher in its hinterland.

A large catalyst for the growth of intellectual capital, research networks, and productive human resources at the higher end of the spectrum is often spurred by what is called ’effective density’. These are the large closely integrated urban agglomerates, which create a fertile breeding ground for not just new enterprises in scale, but also demand for services that are qualitatively different.

Let us take the example of the United States. The Northeastern corridor that stretches from Boston to Washington spans approx 750 kms is served by the Acela express, which achieves a top speed of about 240 km/hr. This speed is somewhere between the speed proposed for the semi high speed and the high speed trains in India. The sheer success of the Acela, can be seen in the fact that it has helped Amtrak (the IR equivalent of the United States) , enhance its share of overall air/train commuters in the Washington- New York sector from 37% in 2000 to 75% in 2011. The competition even led some airlines to review services between New York and Washington. On the yet longer Boston Washington stretch the Acela today commands a share of approximately 54% of the air and train traffic combined. Today the Acelas drive close to 25% of Amtrak Revenue. The question today is therefore with High speed and Semi high speed rail, India should dare to dream of such Railway Operations, and not be defensive about them. So how do such phenomena unfold ?

The stretch covers some of the best universities like MIT, Harvard, the University of Connecticut, the University of Princeton, Maryland and many more. It covers the entire economic area of Greater NewYork, and New Jersey, Connecticut and Baltimore. This is what you call the Northeastern Megalopolis of the United States often called Bo-Wash meaning Boston to Washington.

The high density of an interconnected and well groomed human resources has spawned some of the best research capabilities in the country. Some of the best Pharmaceutical companies in the United States are based out of this belt, and undoubtedly most amount of research in this field in the United States takes place in the Eastern belt.

Led by these soft human capital factors, the biggest success of these megalopolises is that they increase the productivity of the little land they occupy. The Northeastern Megalopolis in the US occupies about 2% of the land mass, yet accounts for 20% of the nations GDP. Do not the vast amount of skills that India’s teeming millions possess or will possess need these megalopolises as the fertile breeding ground, that can help their ideas and abilities take a completely different trajectory? Much as the United states has witnessed in the North Eastern corridor.

The entire stretch has the headquarters of 54 of the worlds Fortune 500 companies. Some of the major financial companies such as such as J P Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, and Fidelity — are located within the region.

With the GIFT city in Gujarat, a massive chemical industries belt from Vapi to Ankleshwar, some of the best Financial Services talent in Mumbai and the vast MIDC areas stretching from the Eastern and the northern edges of the city of Mumbai, a vast network of universities in Pune, Mumbai, Vadodara and Anand, several dairy giants in Gujarat, should not the great Indian western corridor be complemented with an Acela type service of its kind? Should this Acela type service not convert this great corridor into the Western Megalopolis of India? The belt of Gujarat and North Western Maharashtra will receive immediate traction from this high economic activity zone. In fact this could be just the beginning and India could identify several such sectors besides this most obvious ones to become hub’s of productivity and GDP growth. In fact such largely integrated megalopolises hold the key to galloping GDP growth and seamless and speedy transport will help such megalopolises grow the fastest.

There are several other intangibles of a HSR that often reveal themselves only as the traffic grows - the decongest several other traffic zones, making those commuting belts more productive. Often the growth they facilitate is like interlinking two small nations. These gains are similar to those being projected for India from the BBIN MVA - Bangladesh Bhutan India Nepal that will produce some of the highest economic gains for India’s North East. In an exactly similar argument we need to look at the hinterland between two ends of a HSR, the hinterland that would benefit from massive economic growth and become a GDP driver.

The appraisal of the India HSR story has to take a cue from the study undertaken by Colin Buchanan and Partners in the United Kingdom for the High Speed Rail that connected St Pancras in London with the Channel Tunnel that leads to Paris. It majorly stresses on changes in effective density ( the integration of a population into a large megalopolis or urban agglomerate) and regenerative effects (the development of the hinterland real estate and reduction of economic deprivation) as the means to assess HSR.

Mumbai - Goa and Delhi - Chandigarh are already being integrated into the Semi High Speed Corridor. One can easily imagine what were to happen if it were possible to integrate that traffic into the main stream traffic of the HSR. Effectively it would be possible to offer a direct connectivity to Ahmedabad , Goa, Mumbai and if the corridor eventually goes from Mumbai to Delhi and then finally Chandigarh. The multiplier effect in bringing together disparate and discretely distributed pieces of the skilled population holds the potential to generate a large multiplier effect as far as GDP growth is concerned, a large expanse of the network which could then be the Golden Western Corridor of India.

India is now poised to take the first step towards high speed rail and it needs to be courageous and take more similar steps. The economics of the opportunities it will create like the NorthEastern Megalopolis of the US , will far outweigh the immediate cost economics that has most of us bogged down.