India Rejects Former Japanese Minister's Remarks on Shinkansen Project Delays

Shinkansen bullet train. | Photo credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Japan will provide its next-generation E10 series Shinkansen trains to India for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (MAHSR) project, official spokespersons of the Ministries of External Affairs and Railways said on Friday, addressing queries on the status of the project.

“Discussions between India and Japan on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed train are progressing well. Japan will provide the E10 train in the early 2030s. The train is still under development. Meanwhile, construction work is progressing rapidly. The first section will open in 2027,” said a Railway Ministry spokesperson.

The clarification comes in response to a recent critical post by a former Japanese minister on social media regarding the project, which will be India’s first bullet train network. Hideki Makihara, a member of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, blamed New Delhi for the delay in the timeline in the post. He also raised concerns that the Japanese side was allegedly “excluded from the signaling system” of the high-speed network.

The MEA clarified that the statement represented an “individual opinion” that was “significantly at odds with the facts”.

Japan is playing a key role in the implementation of the mega-project, both in terms of its financing and the sharing of technology and engineering knowledge.

Railway officials said India and Japan have agreed to start operations of India’s high-speed train, which is expected to run at an operational speed of 280 kmph.

The train is currently being developed in-house by BEML Limited and Integral Coach Factory. “We will start by using an indigenous train as India wants to make the Surat-Bilimora section in Gujarat operational by August 2027 and the Japanese E10 trains will arrive only in 2030,” officials said.

Launch in 2027

Construction work on the 508 km corridor has picked up speed, officials said. The Ministry of Railways has awarded a tender to German multinational Siemens for the installation of signaling systems along a section of the bullet train corridor with the aim of starting operations by 2027. “The security equipment has been ordered accordingly and is in accordance with international specifications. No Japanese bid has been received in this regard. The implementation of the project is in line with the common goal of starting the high-speed train project as soon as possible,” the MEA spokesperson said.

“This interim phase will allow the Indian Railways to develop operational familiarity and gain confidence in the system before transitioning to the 320km/h Japanese E10 trainsets in 2030,” a senior railway ministry source said.

India is implementing the European Train Signaling System (ETCS), which is a modern digital signaling architecture based on the radio principle. “The ETCS radio system is a significant upgrade over the legacy World War II-era coaxial copper cable systems, which suffer from signal leakage and are highly susceptible to localized copper cable theft,” said a Railway Ministry source.

The source added that the E10 Shinkansen trains can also run on ETCS technology and their primary purpose was to act as a standardized interoperable signaling system. Citing the example of Taiwan’s high-speed railway, the source added that such interoperability – Japanese Shinkansen trains running on a European-style signaling network – is a global practice.

(With PTI inputs)

Published – 17 Jul 2026 22:31 IST