Land acquisition for rail corridors without official request is illegal, says Union Minister

Any land acquisition done for proposed high-speed rail corridors without an official request from the Railways is illegal. Union Coal and Mines Minister G. Kishan Reddy made this clear after meeting Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in New Delhi.

Rail Corridors

The Railways has not sent any request for land acquisition to the State governments for the Hyderabad-Chennai, Hyderabad-Bengaluru and Hyderabad-Pune corridors. Alignment studies for all three routes are still under way. The final details will be shared with the State governments and farmers only after the route alignments are locked in.

Context

High-speed rail projects require detailed survey work and route planning before any actual work on the ground can begin. Official requests to State governments for land are sent only after these initial planning stages are complete.