After cancelling the launch of the Mumbai-Goa Vande Bharat post the Odisha train mishap, the Railway Ministry is gearing up for inauguration of at least five pairs of these semi-high speed trains in one go by June-end.
Speaking to News18, a Ministry official said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to inaugurate these trains — Mumbai-Goa, Patna-Ranchi, Bangalore-Hubli, Bhopal-Indore and Bhopal-Jabalpur — on June 26.
“The trial runs of the Mumbai-Goa and Patna-Ranchi have already been completed. On the other routes, it will be done in the coming weeks,” the official said, demanding anonymity.
The Ministry is yet to announce the routes of these trains. The official added that the PM will be inaugurating these trains on one day through video-conferencing.
MANY FIRSTS
The highlight is Goa and Jharkhand, as these states will get their first Vande Bharat trains.
With the Bhopal-Indore and Bhopal-Jabalpur trains, Madhya Pradesh will be added to the list of states that have intra-state Vande Bharat trains. Madhya Pradesh is already connected with Delhi through a Vande Bharat from Bhopal.
With the Bangalore-Hubli train, Karnataka will also be added to the list of states that have intra-state Vande Bharat.
Maharashtra was the first state in India to get intra-state Vande Bharat trains – Mumbai-Shirdi and Mumbai-Solapur. The Vande Bharat between Howrah and New Jalpaiguri also has a stoppage in Bihar, as it goes outside the state for a small stretch.
Apart from these states, Tamil Nadu and Kerala also have intra-state Vande Bharats.
Post the launch, Madhya Pradesh, the state which goes to polls later this year, will have three Vande Bharat trains. So far, Delhi has the highest number of Vande Bharat trains – six pairs, followed by Maharashtra with four pairs of operational trains. The other states that have three pairs of Vande Bharat trains are – Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Haryana.
Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh have two pairs of Vande Bharat trains operational as of date. Karnataka will be added to this list post the inauguration of the new train.
The Mumbai-Goa Vande Bharat train was earlier scheduled to be inaugurated on June 3, but the event was canceled in the wake of the tragic three-train accident that took place in Odisha’s Balasore. On June 2, three trains, including two passenger trains, met with an accident in Odisha that killed around 290 people.
18 PAIRS OPERATIONAL ACROSS INDIA
Currently, 18 pairs – 36 services – of Vande Bharat trains are functional across India, including six pairs from Delhi. The national capital is connected to Dehradun, Ajmer, Varanasi, Katra, Bhopal, and Amb Andaura with these semi-high-speed trains.
Further, Mumbai has three pairs of Vande Bharat trains – one each for Gandhinagar, Shirdi and Solapur – and the one for Goa will be the fourth one.
Two pairs of Vande Bharat trains are operating from Chennai for Mysuru and Coimbatore. Vande Bharat is also operational on the Bilaspur-Nagpur, Howrah-New Jalpaiguri, Secunderabad-Tirupati, Secunderabad-Visakhapatnam, Thiruvananthapuram-Kasaragod, Guwahati-New Jalpaiguri and Puri-Howrah routes.
Interestingly, this will be the first time that five pairs of these semi-high speed trains will be inaugurated on the same day. So far, a maximum of two pairs of trains were inaugurated in a day. Of these trains, Mumbai-Shirdi and Mumbai-Solapur (February 10) were inaugurated the same day apart from Secunderabad-Tirupati and Chennai-Coimbatore (April 8).
In the current financial year, the Ministry has geared up for the production and delivery of these semi-high speed trains and since April 1, at least eight pairs of Vande Bharat trains have already been inaugurated.
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