Mr KH Muniyappa minister of state for railways informed the Lok Sabha that Mott MacDonald, United Kingdom has been engaged as Consultant to undertake prefeasibility study for High Speed Rail Corridor between Delhi-Agra-Lucknow-Varanasi-Patna.

The study will be completed by November 2011. Till now an amount of INR 8,864,192 has been incurred on this study.

Ministry has decided to set up National High Speed Rail Authority for planning, standard setting, implementing and monitoring of High Speed Rail Projects.