75 new Vande Bharat trains to connect all parts of India: PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday announced that 75 new Vande Bharat Express trains will be launched to connect different parts of the country in 75 weeks to mark the ongoing ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.’

“…The country has resolved that 75 Vande Bharat trains will be connecting every corner of the country in 75 weeks of Amrit Mahotsav of Independence,” he told the crowd during his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort.

The Indian Railways had floated a revised tender in September last year for procuring 44 semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains from companies registered only in India. The government had earlier scrapped three global tenders for the ambitious project.

Hyderabad-based engineering firm Medha, which in February secured the contract to supply the electrical systems for the 44 trains, has now been told to advance its production plan so that at least two prototypes can be rolled out by next March following all trials.

The indigenous semi-high speed train set, also known as Train 18, is being given a boost with the Railways gearing to roll out at least 10 of them, linking around 40 cities by August 2022, according to officials aware of the development.

The maiden run of a Vande Bharat train was flagged off by Modi on the New Delhi-Varanasi route on February 15, 2019. The second such train service between New Delhi and Shri Mata Vaishnodevi Katra was flagged off by Union home minister Amit Shah on October 3 in the same year.

Besides this, the Prime Minister also talked about boosting rail connectivity in the northeast region, saying it is significant for the entire country. “Today, we are in the process of writing a new history as far as connectivity to the northeast is concerned. This connectivity is both between hearts and infrastructure. Very soon the job of connecting the capital cities of the northeastern states by rail will be completed,” Modi said.

As of today, except Sikkim, all northeastern states are connected to the rail network. The capital cities of Assam, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh are already connected, while the work to link the capital cities of Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Meghalaya is underway.

Referring to the regional connectivity scheme in the aviation sector, Modi said it is unprecedented the way UDAN scheme was connecting far-flung areas of the country and the speed at which new airports are being built.

(With agency inputs)