Photo caption: What's the ETA? (Reuters/Steve Marcus)

By Itika Sharma Punit,
to The Post

The future of transportation may reach India soon.

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), an American company that is working on an ultra-fast rail system, is in talks with the Indian government to bring the technology to the country. HTT is backed by businessman and investor, Elon Musk.

The company has submitted a letter of intent (LoI) to transport minister Nitin Gadkari and is awaiting a response.

“He (Gadkari) has had the LoI for about two weeks now,” Bibop Gresta, co-founder of HTT, told Indian media on Dec. 06. “I think India is a perfect country to implement this project because the roads are not that good here. The transportation is not capable to sustain a growth in a country like India,” he said.

Once the Indian government signs the LoI, the company will need around eight months to conduct a feasibility study, Gresta said. “Then after we get land permits, we can build a technically feasible Hyperloop in 38 months,” he added.

The Hyperloop train system propels a capsule-like vehicle through a tube at the speed of an aircraft. It can be used to transport passengers and freight.

During his trip to the US in September, Gadkari had offered Musk’s SpaceX a big chunk of land in Maharashtra to test the Hyperloop project. “They (SpaceX) want some road for experimental purpose. I offered them the westerly bypass of Pune connected to the Express Highway,” he said at the time. “The idea is they can take an experiment between Mumbai and Pune as a pilot project. It is up to [SpaceX] to decide whether or not to accept my offer.”

Gresta did not specify the amount of investment that launching Hyperloop in India would need, but said he was not looking for any funds from the government. “We are not asking money right now, but asking for a piece of land,” he said. “The company has several options for raising money. One of them is to build the Hyperloop in public-private partnership. We also have private investors interested in implementing the project.”

Prime minister Narendra Modi-led Indian government has been toying with the idea of building bullet trains in India. The project is expected to cost billions. For example, the expenditure on a proposed bullet train project between Ahmedabad in Gujarat to the country’s financial capital Mumbai is estimated to be around Rs1 lakh crore ($15 billion).

Hyperloop is a much cheaper alternative, Gresta said.

“You are going to spend $12 billion on a bullet train? Put $1 billion in Hyperloop and you will never need a bullet train,” he said.

Itika is a Writer at Quartz, based in Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley. A technology writer for over seven years, she has previously worked with Business Standard and Network18 in Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi. She holds a masters degree in English literature, and is passionate about entrepreneurship, Bollywood, and Shakespeare.

This piece was originally appeared in Quartz (qz.com).

See ://qz.com/854268/elon-musks-hyperloop-wants-to-solve-indias-railway-problem/