New Delhi: With an aim to achieve its target in the next three years, Indian Railways has paced up the manufacturing of Vande Bharat Express. While 44 Vande Bharat trains are already in the manufacturing stage, Railways has also started preparing for the next batch of 58 trains for which tenders are being called for and nine firms have been shortlisted. This includes Siemens, BHEL, Medha, Titagar Wagons, Bombardier, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, and others.
During the last year's Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid down a blueprint setting up a target of 75 Vande Bharat trains by August 2023. While Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced in her Budget 2022 speech that 400 new generation Vande Bharat Express with better energy efficiency and passenger riding experience will be manufactured in the next three years.
During a press conference recently, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had said that the second version of the Vande Bharat train is currently getting manufactured which will undergo the testing process in the month of April, followed by its serial production by August-September.
These 44 trainsets which are under manufacturing, will have improvements in terms of better seating, an anti-bacterial system in AC, less noise, and other features. The new generation Vande Bharat will be made of light-weight aluminum, rather than steel.
The cost of each of these train set is kept around Rs 25 crore more as compared to the present ones, which costs around Rs 106 crore per set (comprising of 16 coaches). In this year's Union Budget, a capital investment of Rs 1,37,000 crore has been given to the Ministry of Railways.
