NEW DELHI (Metro Rail News): The Indian Railways has placed an order for 58 new Vande Bharat trains with seven companies including Medha Servo, Bombardier and Siemens. Along with that railways has also placed developmental orders with 4 different corporations which are able to manufacture at least one train each. By this railways aim to create a much bigger pool of producers who can meet future demand for such trains.
According to sources Medha will manufacture 26 Vande Bharat trains whereas Bombardier and Siemens will manufacture 16 and 9 trains respectively. The order of 4 trains is given to BHEL which is a government-owned company. The corporations that have gotten developmental orders include Titagarh wagons and CGL.
“First, we have high domestic demand and second we can become a big player in exporting these trains to other countries as our cost of production is almost one-third as compared to any other country. For that, we need to go for capacity building and hence the companies that have got the developmental order will also emerge as potential players in the near future,” an official stated.
The government has a plan to introduce more Vande Bharat trains to increase connectivity on interstate routes and also on capital connectivity corridors. The future Vande Bharat trains will have sleeper facility for overnight journeys to benefit the passengers in more ways.
Currently, two Vande Bharat trains are operational yet and 44 are under manufacturing. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her previous speech had introduced the rollout of 400 extra trains within a couple of years.
