Vande Bharat Express: Railways can start three more Vande Bharat trains in South India. Officials gave this information on Monday. The routes being considered for the new services are Kachiguda in Telangana to Bengaluru in Karnataka and Secunderabad in Telangana to Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh and Pune in Maharashtra.
New Delhi: Railways can start three more Vande Bharat trains in South India. Officials gave this information on Monday. The routes being considered for the new services are Kachiguda in Telangana to Bengaluru in Karnataka and Secunderabad in Telangana to Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh and Pune in Maharashtra.
Big announcements can be made in view of assembly elections
Assembly elections in Karnataka and Telangana are likely to be held later this year, while assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh are likely to be held in 2024. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is focusing on its performance in the southern states in the next parliamentary elections to be held in 2024 under its Mission South.
Railways had started South India’s first Vande Bharat Express train on the Chennai-Bengaluru-Mysore route in November this year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the fifth rake of Vande Bharat Express at Krantiveer Sangolli Railway Station in Bengaluru. Officials said the recently introduced Secunderabad-Vizag Vande Bharat Express is running with 100 per cent passenger capacity.
Plan to run 400 trains in next three years
Sources said railway divisions of South Central Railway have been asked to update the infrastructure of at least one coaching depot in Secunderabad, Hyderabad and Vijayawada section for maintenance of Vande Bharat train to these destinations. Indian Railways plans to run 75 Vande Bharat trains by the end of this year and 400 trains in the next three years.
So far Vande Bharat trains have been started on various routes including Nagpur-Bilaspur, Delhi-Varanasi, Gandhinagar-Mumbai and Chennai-Mysore. The Vande Bharat Express is designed and manufactured by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) at Perambur, Chennai, under a major ‘Make-in-India’ initiative.
