India and Japan are set to firm up an agreement on highspeed train services, widely referred to as ‘Bullet Trains’, during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit next week. Abe’s Special Adviser Hiroto Izumi will be in Delhi this week for high-level talks to finalise the terms of the agreement on high-speed trains, known as Shinkansen in Japan. He will be negotiating the details with senior officials in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the railway ministry. The first train is planned between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. The project will cut travelling time between Mumbai and Ahmedabad from seven to two hours.

About Bullet Train Project:-

• Japan is likely to agree to finance the Rs 90,000 crore-plus railway project through a soft loan at 0.5% interest with a repayment tenure of 50 years, according to the people cited.
• Usually, Japan offers this sort of project financing at 1.5% interest and a tenure not exceeding 25 years.
• The rate of interest and repayment time proposed by Japan are extremely attractive for India.
• This has been possible only because of the push by the PMs of both the countries.
• These are very favourable terms, and also show the extent to which Japan has gone to relax these conditions, especially for India.
• Abe is expected to arrive on December 11 while the finalisation of the Bullet Train agreement is likely to happen the next day.
• Abe will also visit Varanasi.

Abe and Modi had agreed to twin the city with Kyoto, a city with deep cultural and historic roots like Varanasi, during the Indian PM’s visit to Japan last year. During the visit, both leaders agreed to collaborate on India’s Bullet Train project, which was also a pre-poll promise by Modi.

Japan’s role would include construction, fixing the route, providing technology and assisting in procurement of equipment, besides providing consultancy and executing the project.