The Union railway ministry has not ordered land acquisition for the proposed Hyderabad–Chennai, Hyderabad–Bengaluru and Hyderabad–Pune high-speed rail corridors, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Friday, clarifying that the routes are still being studied and have not been finalised.
Vaishnaw made the clarification during a meeting with Union coal and mines minister G. Kishan Reddy on the progress of the three proposed corridors. He said no requisition for land acquisition had been sent to the respective state governments for any of the projects.
The minister also said that any land acquisition being undertaken in the name of the high-speed rail projects at this stage would be illegal, since the Railway Ministry had not initiated the process. The statement addresses a potentially significant concern for landowners and farmers along routes that could eventually connect Hyderabad with three major southern and western Indian cities.
According to Vaishnaw, alignment studies for all three corridors are currently underway. The studies will determine the routes that the proposed rail lines could follow, but the final alignments have not yet been approved. This means that no specific villages, parcels or properties have been officially identified for acquisition in connection with the corridors based on the information provided by the ministry.
The proposed links would extend Hyderabad’s role in the high-speed rail network under consideration for southern India. However, the minister’s clarification indicates that the projects remain at the planning and technical study stage rather than at the land procurement or construction stage. No construction timeline or final project alignment was provided in the statement.
Vaishnaw said that once the alignments are finalised, the details would be shared with the respective state governments and farmers. The process would therefore involve a future communication of the selected routes to state authorities and potentially affected landowners before any formal land acquisition activity begins.
The clarification also distinguishes between preliminary route planning and legally initiated land acquisition. Until the Railway Ministry sends the required requisitions to state governments, activities carried out in the name of these proposed corridors do not have the ministry’s authorisation, according to the minister.
The next formal milestone for the three Hyderabad-linked corridors is the completion and finalisation of their alignment studies. Details of the selected routes are to be shared with the concerned state governments and farmers after that process is completed.
