Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced on Friday that Vande Bharat trains will be operational in every state. The government aims to link 200 cities with these state-of-the-art trains, developed within the country, by mid-2024.
The Indian Railways is also looking at Vande Metro, he said.
“After a two-day ‘Chintan Shivir’ hosted by the Ministry, Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed reporters that the design for the Vande Metro trainset has been officially concluded.”
“The anticipated application for these eight-coach self-propelled trainsets is on short-distance suburban routes, with the Mumbai local being one of the specific use cases for the Vande Metro concept.”
According to an official statement, the purpose of the Chintan Shivir was to engage in a collective brainstorming session aimed at exploring novel approaches, adopting innovative ideas, and identifying new methods to achieve key goals. These objectives include increasing the annual track commissioning, maximizing daily freight loading, and striving for zero consequential accidents. Additionally, the Chintan Shivir focused on reviewing the ongoing initiatives of the railways ministry and formulating an actionable plan to implement Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision 2047, as stated in the official statement.
Vaishnaw emphasised rail safety and adoption of newer technologies. He also urged officers to ponder over increasing train speed to 160 kmph for half of the Indian Railways network.
Vaishnaw also asked officers to devise a method to cater to 11 billion passengers annually and how to decongest the railways network.
A senior government official who was part of the deliberations, said the Indian Railways role as a driver of the Indian economy was also discussed and measures to attract more freight were charted out.
“Deployment and improvements of tracks has increased. The focus is now to commission 10,000 km of tracks per year,” he added.