The Centre has said no land acquisition requisition has been sent to state governments for three proposed high-speed rail corridors linked to Hyderabad, warning that any acquisition undertaken for the projects at this stage would be illegal.
Union Coal Minister G Kishan Reddy said on Saturday that alignment studies for the proposed Hyderabad–Chennai, Hyderabad–Bengaluru and Hyderabad–Pune high-speed rail corridors are still underway. He said the clarification followed discussions with Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
According to Reddy, the Railways Minister clarified that the Centre had not issued land acquisition requisitions to the states concerned. Reddy said any land acquisition being carried out in the name of high-speed rail before the alignments are finalised would therefore be illegal.
The statement comes amid land acquisition efforts by the Telangana government for the rail corridor and other projects. Those efforts have faced resistance from farmers in areas on the outskirts of Hyderabad, bringing the status of the proposed corridors into a live dispute over land, project planning and the authority to begin acquisition.
Reddy said the three corridors are at the alignment-study stage. The studies are intended to determine the routes of the proposed lines before the Centre shares details with the respective state governments and affected farmers, according to the statement.
The three proposed links would connect Hyderabad with Chennai, Bengaluru and Pune. However, the statement did not provide a final route, station list, construction schedule, project cost or land requirement for any of the corridors. It also did not specify which parcels of land may have been included in the Telangana government’s acquisition efforts.
The Centre’s clarification places the immediate focus on the sequence of project approvals and land-related action. Until the alignment studies are completed and formally communicated, the proposed corridors do not have a confirmed route on which state-level acquisition can be based, according to Reddy’s account of the Railways Minister’s position.
The next stated milestone is the finalisation of the alignments, after which details are expected to be shared with the concerned state governments and farmers.
