40 New Vande Bharat Trains Connecting 40 Cities Will Launch In the Next 365 Days: Full Details

To honor the 75th year of Independence in 2022, Railway Minister Ashwini
Vaishnaw has finalized plans to roll out about 10 new Vande Bharat trains by August next year, which will connect at least 40 cities.

Vande Bharat is India’s self-developed semi-high speed train set, which matches the international standards and takes shorter time to complete journeys, compared to the Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains.

The Indian government has plans to eventually add 100 Vande Bharat trains and is working towards adding a maximum number of these trains by 2024.

In a meeting headed by the chairman of Railway Board Suneet Sharma on July 17, proceeding plans for executing the launch of at least 10 new Vande Bharat trains by August 2022 were discussed, in the presence of concerned parties related to the said project.

10 New Vande Bharat Trains to be Added

As one of his initial moves post handling the Railway Ministry office, the new Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has directed to execute the plan of rolling out about 10 Vande Bharat trains by August 2022 to commemorate India’s 75th year of independence.

In February, Railways awarded the contract of supplying the electrical systems for 44 Vande Bharat trains to the Hyderabad-based engineering firm Medha.

It has been reported that the firm has now been instructed to advance its production plan so that at least two prototypes can be rolled out for trials by March 2022.

On Saturday, the Railway Board held a meeting headed by chairman Suneet Sharma. It was attended by Board members concerned, General Managers of production units, the Research Design and Standards Organisation and other engineers to work out the nuts and bolts of the new plan on a war footing.

Officials state that if all the three production units, namely

• Integral Coach Factory, Chennai
• Modern Coach Factory, Raebareli, and
• Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala

work together, Railways can manufacture upto 6 or 7 Vande Bharat train sets each month.

Currently, two Vande Bharat trains are operational. One was inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi on 15 February 2019, beginning its commercial run from 17 February 2019, running on the Delhi–Varanasi route, via Kanpur and Prayagraj, and the second train was launched in 2020, connecting Delhi and Katra.

It would cost about Rs 11,000 crore to manufacture 100 Vande Bharat trains, with individual trains costing about Rs 110 crore.