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Satish Agnihotri, a 1982 batch IRSE officer (retired) on Thursday took charge as the new Managing Director of the National High Speed Rail Corporation Ltd (NHSRCL), which is looking after the works of the high-speed rail corridors.

NHSRCL spokesperson Sushma Gaur said that Agnihotri holds Bachelor of Engineering (Civil, 1982) and Master of Engineering (Structures, 1984) degrees from the IIT Roorkee, and was conferred with the distinguished ‘Alumnus Award' by the institute in 2013.

She said that Agnihotri comes with more than 19 years of experience in th implementation of mega rail infrastructure projects.

"He had worked as the Chairman and Managing Director of the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) for close to nine years. He also held the position of Chairman, High Speed Rail Corporation Ltd (HSRC), a fully-owned subsidiary of RVNL, since its inception in July 2012 till August 2018," she said.

Gaur said that HSRC was the Indian-side counterpart agency for carrying out various high-speed studies which were undertaken on government-to-government basis with China, Spain etc. and completed feasibility studies of five high-speed rail corridors.

Gaur further said that during his tenure as the CMD of RVNL, it completed 7,000 km of project length including 3,000 km doubling/3rd line, 880 km conversion of metre gauge track to broad gauge, 3,000 km railway electrification, 85 km new line, six factories and many important bridges.

"A 7 km long tunnel was also completed in a record time of 25 months in a new line project in Andhra Pradesh," she added.

Achal Khare, the first MD of NHSRCL, retired on Wednesday.

"As we bid farewell to our first Managing Director Achal Khare, the NHSRCL family takes this opportunity to thank him for his inspiring leadership and trailblazing spirit towards the dream of India's first high-speed rail corridor," the NHSRCL said in a tweet.