‘Most flying should be replaced’: Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu pitches Japan style high speed rail model for India

Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu on Tuesday backed Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw’s push for faster rail networks and said India should study Japan’s railway model to build high-speed and suburban train systems across the country.

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“Japan presents a very interesting model,” Vembu wrote while reacting to Vaishnaw’s recent remarks on railway expansion and safety. 

Vembu praised Indian Railways for reducing accidents and called it the “safest” period in its history. “He [Ashwini Vaishnaw] stated that the last financial year was the safest in the 150-year history of Indian Railways, as accidents had been reduced by 90 per cent,” Vembu said.

“We don’t appreciate this kind of unsexy progress enough. As a frequent night train traveller, thank you, Ashwini Vaishnaw-ji,” he added.

The Zoho founder said India’s geography made it ideal for large-scale rail connectivity and argued that high-speed trains could replace a significant share of air travel. “I agree with him that most of our flying should be replaced with high-speed trains,” Vembu said.

He added that routes such as Delhi-Mumbai and Chennai-Mumbai could eventually be covered in “4-5 hours”, similar to China’s Beijing-Shanghai corridor. 

Vembu then pointed to Japan’s local railway ecosystem as a template India could adapt. “Japan’s local train networks are a marvel of both engineering and business planning,” he said.

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According to Vembu, Japanese real estate companies operate private suburban railway systems and integrate train stations with shopping malls, hospitals and other infrastructure. “In India, a lot of idle capital locked up in semi-urban or urban real estate can be used to finance the build-up by private companies,” he said. “Japan presents a very interesting model.”

Vembu also pitched an ambitious rural rail expansion plan. “Now my personal passion: we must build trains to every panchayat in India (250,000 station network!),” he wrote. “Building the network will massively stimulate the economy and create rural jobs. Once the infrastructure is done, it will attract higher-value economic activity. It will set off a 10-15 year economic boom!”

On Monday, Vaishnaw said Indian Railways had utilised nearly 98 per cent of its FY26 capital expenditure budget by the end of February. The railway minister said upcoming corridors would sharply reduce travel time between major cities, including Mumbai-Pune in 28 minutes, Pune-Hyderabad in under two hours and Hyderabad-Bengaluru in around two hours.

“So nobody will fly. These sectors will be out for airlines,” Vaishnaw had said. He also said Indian Railways had electrified 49,000 kilometres of tracks and added 36,000 kilometres of new railway lines in recent years.