Hyperloop project: Virgin founder Richard Branson to meet CM Uddhav Thackeray

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson will meet Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on December 12 in an attempt to 'clear any misunderstanding if any' over the ambitious hyperloop project that aims to connect Mumbai with Pune.

Soon after the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition of Shiv Sena, the NCP and Congress (I) formed the government in Maharashtra, in late November, there were talks of the new CM scrapping the Rs 60,500-crore project.

"I'm meeting the CM tomorrow. There has been a change in administration, and it is important to have a courtesy call when you have a big project," Branson told mediapersons in Mumbai.

The billionaire entrepreneur's Virgin Hyperloop One had bagged the project, which promises to reduce travel time between Mumbai-Pune to less than 35 mins, from over three hours now. Experts akin the high speed transportation system to a bullet train.

The earlier Maharashtra government had given the final nod for the project in August this year.

But Thackeray's government has been reviewing projects cleared by the previous dispensation, and had come down on one of the segments of the Mumbai metro project.

Some media reports had quoted government sources saying that the hyperloop project has been put under 'review,' with the government reluctant to put money on a transportation system that is yet to be proven.

But Branson brushed aside talks of the project getting scrapped as 'mis-reporting."

Founded in 2014, Virgin Hyperloop One had two years later launched a global challenge to find locations for the first few projects. Apart from the Mumbai-Pune one, similar projects are planned in the US, Mexico, Canada and the UK.