Guwahati: Travelling by train to the national capital from Guwahati will now take just eight hours, about 3.5 times less than it does now.CM Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday welcomed the Union govt’s decision to connect Guwahati with the national capital through a bullet train, saying the Centre “always listens” to people’s demands.Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced on Saturday that PM Narendra Modi approved Northern Corridor of the bullet train project. The corridor will connect Delhi, Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Ayodhya, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Patna and Siliguri before extending to Guwahati.Sharing the announcement on ‘X’, Sarma wrote, “Guwahati-Delhi in under 8 hours? Yes! The extension of the Northern bullet train corridor to Guwahati is a pivotal moment for East India.”He thanked Modi and Vaishnaw for the project.“The corridor was initially meant to end at Siliguri. After my written request and meeting with Ashwini Vaishnaw ji in July, he saw merit in our proposal and approved its extension into the North East. This is what a government that listens and delivers looks like,” he added.Sarma said fast and affordable, flight-like connectivity to Delhi and two other state capitals would create opportunities for businesses and livelihoods as Assam prepares for “a new wave of high-tech industries”.“A bullet train to Assam once seemed so far-fetched that it never even became a public demand. Today, what we scarcely dared to dream is becoming reality,” he added.He also wrote, “Isiliye, Modi kahin nahi jayega (That is why Modi is going nowhere)!”In his letter to Vaishnaw, Sarma said the Delhi-Siliguri high-speed rail corridor would reduce travel time and strengthen economic integration across northern and eastern India. He requested that it be extended to Guwahati, describing the city as the gateway to the northeast and the region’s largest economic and transportation hub.“Extending the corridor to Guwahati would not only bring the entire region onto India’s bullet train map but would also serve as a catalyst for economic growth, tourism, trade and investment across the northeast,” he added.
