The Aryavarth Express
New Delhi: India’s first high-speed rail project marked a major milestone with the successful breakthrough of a mountain tunnel in Maharashtra’s Palghar district. Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw announced on Friday that Mountain Tunnel-5 (MT-5) has been completed, making it the first mountain tunnel breakthrough on the Mumbai–Ahmedabad Bullet Train corridor.
Addressing a press conference, the minister said the project includes seven mountain tunnels and one undersea tunnel. Of the total 508-kilometre corridor, tunnels account for 27.4 kilometres—21 kilometres underground and 6.4 kilometres as surface tunnels. Maharashtra has seven mountain tunnels with a combined length of 6.05 kilometres, while Gujarat has one mountain tunnel measuring 350 metres.
The recently completed MT-5 tunnel in Palghar district is 1.48 kilometres long (1.39 kilometres excluding portals and hood) and is the longest among the seven mountain tunnels planned in the project. Earlier, the first underground tunnel of nearly 5 kilometres between Thane and Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) was completed in September 2025.
Providing further updates, Vaishnaw said the bullet train project will have 12 stations, with Sabarmati as the terminal in Gujarat and BKC as the Mumbai terminal. Three depots are also being constructed, instead of the usual two for a corridor of this length. He noted that delays in approvals during a previous state government tenure in Maharashtra led to the need for additional infrastructure planning.
Last month, another key achievement was recorded with the successful launch of a 130-metre span of a 230-metre-long steel bridge over National Highway-64 and the Bharuch–Dahej freight rail line near Kanthariya village in Gujarat’s Bharuch district. The continuous steel bridge consists of two spans of 130 metres and 100 metres, stands about 18 metres high, and weighs nearly 2,780 metric tonnes. Fabricated in Bhuj, the bridge is designed for a lifespan of 100 years.
The bridge was assembled using over 1.22 lakh high-strength bolts and launched within 12 hours using semi-automatic jacks, with carefully planned traffic blocks and diversions to ensure safety and minimize disruption.
The Mumbai–Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Corridor stretches across 352 kilometres in Gujarat and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and 156 kilometres in Maharashtra, connecting major cities such as Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Vapi, Thane, and Mumbai. About 85 per cent of the route runs on viaducts, with 326 kilometres of viaduct construction already completed. Of the 25 planned river bridges, 17 have been finished so far.
Once operational, the bullet train is expected to reduce travel time between Mumbai and Ahmedabad to nearly two hours, significantly transforming inter-city travel and boosting business, tourism, and economic development along the corridor.
