A consortium led by China Railway, China's national train operator, was chosen on Sept. 18 to conduct a feasibility study for a 1,200 km-long high-speed railway line linking Delhi and Mumbai, China Railway announced on Wednesday.

The Third Railway Survey and Design Institute Group Corporation, a subsidiary of China Railway, will work with Indian firms, dispatching rail experts to initiate the study for the 1,200-km line, China Railway said.

In December 2014, India's Ministry of Railways invited bids to study the feasibility of high-speed lines for Delhi-Mumbai, Mumbai-Chennai and Delhi-Kolkata routes. Twelve companies from seven countries including the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium tendered bids. 

According to China Railway, China’s railway technology is reliable and adaptive and has a lower price/performance ratio. China now has around 17,000 km of high-speed track, accounting for more than 60 percent of the world's total.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed a program to upgrade India’s railways when he came to power in 2014. There is a plan to inject a total of 137 billion US dollars into the country's 100-year-old railways, reaching 65,000 km .