The committee, led by Ineco and composed of Typsa and the Indian consultancy firm ICT, will assess the viability of a high speed train line between the capital New Delhi and Kolkata.

The line will measure approximately 1,500 km in length, and will pass through many cities of significant commercial, social and touristic interest, such as New Delhi, Agra, Aligarh, Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, Mughal Benares, Sarai, Patna, Gaya, Dhanbad, Asansoi, Durgapur and Kolkata.

This project is part of the Diamond Quadrilateral Programme, driven by the Indian government, and aims to use high speed trains to connect the cities of New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai.

This programme, which spans fourteen states, was established to address the Indian government’s need to rejuvenate the country’s current railway network. This network is the largest in the world, totalling over 64,000 km in length, and each day it is used by over 18,000 trains to transport around 23 million passengers and approximately 2.6MT of goods.

Ineco has already worked in this country in the past, to assess the viability of the high speed train connection between Haldia and Howrah in 2014, and to provide technical assistance for work on the metro in Mumbai in 2009.