In the last few years, Vande Bharat trains have been launched one after the other in the country.
The government told Parliament on Wednesday that the number of Vande Bharat trains has increased to 82. While giving good news, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav has said that work is going on to increase the speed of these trains to 160 kilometers per hour on New Delhi-Mumbai and New Delhi-Howrah routes.
In a written reply in the Lok Sabha to questions raised by 10 MPs regarding the services of Vande Bharat trains, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “As of January 31, 2024, 82 Vande Bharat train services are running with the Indian Railways.”
He said, “Furthermore, the provision for stopping train services and introduction of new train services, including Vande Bharat, are ongoing processes on Indian Railways subject to traffic justification, operational feasibility, resource availability etc.
To questions on state-wise average revenue generation from Vande Bharat trains, the minister said, “The revenue generated train-wise and state-wise is not maintained.”
Vaishnav also responded to MPs’ concern about steps being taken by the Railways to increase the speed of Vande Bharat trains and said, “10,981 routes covering the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) and diagonal routes and other ‘B’ routes. The sectional speed over kilometer has been increased to 130 km per hour.” “In addition, work has been initiated to increase the speed to 160 kmph on the existing New Delhi-Mumbai (including Vadodara-Ahmedabad) and New Delhi-Howrah (including Kanpur-Lucknow) routes,” he said.
On the question of occupancy in Vande Bharat trains, the minister said that the total occupancy of Vande Bharat trains during the financial year 2022-23 was 96.62 percent.
The MPs also wanted to know about other changes proposed in the said trains for the convenience of passengers. The Railway Minister said that the modernized versions of Vande Bharat trains currently running on the Indian Railways network come with advanced safety features, improved ridership index and passenger amenities such as automatic plug doors, reclining ergonomic seats, comfortable seating arrangements with rotating seats in executive class, mobile Running with. Each seat is equipped with charging socket etc. and armor system.