India, Aug. 10 -- For a project that has spent nearly four decades moving between planning documents, revised alignments and political announcements, Pune's High Capacity Mass Transit Route (HCMTR) is suddenly looking less like a line on a map and more like a project preparing to take shape.

The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has begun the process of appointing consultants for the project, the state government is working on the transfer of government land, and the civic administration is updating technical and land-related studies. PMC officials have indicated that construction tenders could be invited by October.

So, what has changed? And why is a project first conceived in the 1980s finally moving now?

The first answer lies in the ...