The Indian Railways on Saturday said that the timeline of the Ahmedabad-Mumbai high-speed rail corridor will need to be reassessed due to COVID-19 pandemic.

“The real timeframe for its completion can be provided only within the next three to six months,” railway board chairman and CEO VK Yadav said on Saturday.

“In any linear project like the bullet train project, work can only begin when a certain amount of land is available,” Yadav said while addressing the media.

“Within three months we are expecting to acquire 95-100 per cent land in Gujarat,” he further said

“In Maharashtra also we are expecting that in next three to six months the land acquisition will improve a lot and that is why I am mentioning that once the land acquisition is clear the tenders for the civil work and we will start the physical work,” Yadav further added.

“So that will be the appropriate time to reassess project implementation time,” he added.

It may be mentioned here that so far 63 per cent of land has been acquired for the project and the project has a deadline of December 2023.