PM Modi's China Agenda Includes Bullet Trains and Other Rail Projects

New Delhi: Beijing has been pushing India to accelerate work on a multi-billion dollar rail link from New Delhi to Chennai ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to China this week.

China, which is conducting a feasibility study into a $36 billion bullet train project from the capital in the north to Chennai in the south, has asked for work to begin on a pilot project covering part of the route, officials said.

The two sides have also agreed to speed up implementation of a shorter high-speed rail corridor from Chennai to Bengaluru, as China seeks to cash in on PM Modi's vision of modernising a creaking train system that 25 million people use daily.

Such cooperation could help ease tensions between the neighbours caused by a border dispute and Chinese naval forays into the Indian Ocean, as well as India's strategic tie-ups with Japan and the United States.

PM Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to address the border issue, which has proved impossible to resolve despite 13 years of negotiations.

But progress on the economic front is more likely, officials said, as China eyes a greater share of India's $2 trillion economy. Thanks in part to a statistical revision, India is now the world's fastest growing major economy, outstripping China.

Japan and France are the other countries bidding for a share of modernising India's rail system, the world's fourth largest, in which India is seeking investment of $137 billion over the next five years.

Indian Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu said last week that India and China were finalising agreements in the rail sector in the run-up to PM Modi's visit.

Mr Prabhu gave no details, but a railway official said India was considering a Chinese proposal for a pilot project on the Delhi-Agra stretch of the proposed 1,754 km high-speed corridor to Chennai running through the heart of India.

"China has been asking that they start work up to half-way along the line even while the feasibility study is going on," the official said, adding that a memorandum of understanding could be signed during PM Modi's visit.

China has offered to provide India financing for building the high-speed network.

A notice on China's national railway bureau website last month said a delegation visited India from April 25-29 at the invitation of India to talk about accelerating the Sino-Indian railway cooperation document.

Talks were positive and the sides reached broad consensus, it added.