Prateek Tanmay
2 min readNew DelhiJul 20, 2026 05:07 AM IST
The government decided to have its own bullet train and deploy an international signalling system after it became clear in 2024 that Japan cannot provide the E10 Shinkansen train before 2034, said a senior Railway ministry official.
“The Japanese side has still not been able to share the offers for E10 trains, signalling system, and Operation Control Centre (OCC) systems because the train is still under design,” said the official.
Taking to ‘X’ on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (MAHSR) project on Friday, Hideki Makihara, former Justice minister and a member of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, claimed India had displayed “sheer recklessness” in its bullet train project that stalled its progress.
Referring to the signalling system, he wrote, “I feel 100% that the reason this has not moved forward is entirely on the Indian side. No result from Prime Minister Takaichi’s visit either — ‘India Shinkansen’ failure: Japan excluded from the signal system, the key to safety.”
For the 508-km MAHSR project, three systems were to be taken from Japan — Shinkansen bullet train, Signalling System and Operation Control Centre (OCC). The civil construction work was to be done by India.
“The feasibility report and the experience of Taiwan and South Korea indicated that the first section of the project can be made commercially operational by August 2027. Since Japanese E10 would arrive in 2034, both sides decided that the project should be operated with Indian designed bullet trains and the open standard-based signalling system. We learnt that the real reason for Japanese suppliers not being able to share offers was the phasing out of the E5 series in Japan,” said the official.
“Both sides also agreed that the Indian train should run on the open standards-based international signalling system, ETCS. This same system is being used, with variations, in Korea, Taiwan, China, and Europe. RRTS rapid rail is also designed with this system,” said the senior official.
