Mumbai, May 15 2012: The ambitious high speed corridor project of Kerala government will commence next year, according to Kerala chief minister Ooman Chandy. The 1.20 Lac crore project will have 80% private funding through loans, and remaining amount will be invested by state and central government jointly, he stated.

Chandy was in Mumbai for a road-show to showcase the forthcoming ‘Emerging Kerala 2012′ global investor meet, which would be held from September 12 to 14 in Kochi. The first phase of the project will be completed in 2018 when Thiruvananthapuram – Cochin route for high speed rail is ready.

Though the initial plan was to establish high speed rail project only up to Cochin – Kasargod, later it was decided to extend Mangalore and Udupi. In 2020, high speed corridor high speed project will be completed with Thiruvananthapuram – Udupi route.

Currently 634 km Thiruvananthapuram -Udupi route is travelled by train for about 15 hours, but high speed rail will enable passengers to complete this route within three to four hours.

Kerala High Speed Rail Corporation chief T Balakrishnan said that high speed rail facility is available in Japan and China for years, we would initially introduce 200km per hour speed rails here. He said that, in Japan high speed rails run for 350 km per hour.