Winning Bizness Desk

Mumbai. Here is one more piece of good news for railway passengers. Indian Railways has planned to run 200 Vande Bharat trains and has invited bids for procuring 200 Vande Bharat rakes with sleeper coaches and facilities which include long distance overnight journeys. The 102 trains procured by the railways previously only had seating arrangements targeted for small journeys. These 200 new trains are the first step taken by the railways to complete the manufacturing as promised in the budget. Such development in the Railways is a great relief to the Indian citizens and can make their journeys more comfortable.

Will cost around Rs 26,000 crore

The railways have estimated the cost of these next generation trains at around Rs 26,000 crore and plan to introduce them in its bid to provide semi-high speed train connectivity. Apart from the production units at Kapurthala, Chennai and Raebareli, the railways have decided to offer the newly built Latur facility for manufacturing 200 Vande Bharat Trains. Railways have already been awarded the contract of Hyderabad-based Medha Servo Drives Pvt. Ltd. for manufacturing 44 Vande Bharat train sets at Integral Coach Factory (ICF) which is a part of the government’s Make in India initiative.

FM had announced 400 new-generation Vande Bharat train sets

While presenting the Budget 2022 in February, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that 400 new-generation Vande Bharat trains with higher efficiency and better facilities for passengers will be manufactured in the next three years. The version-3 of these trains will have AC-1, AC-2 and AC-3 classes. These trains will be designed for a maximum speed of 160 kmph and a testing speed of 180 kmph. These shall be designed for a life of 35 years. The Finance minister also said that "one product - one railway station" will be popularized in the coming years.