New Delhi: Vande Bharat trains will start covering all the states by end of June, Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Friday. According to a report by news agency ANI, the minister said that the government has a target to connect 200 cities with Vande Bharat by the middle of next year.
“Vande Bharat trains will start covering all the states by June. We have a target to connect 200 cities with Vande Bharat by the middle of next year. Production work is going at a fast pace for the implementation of the project,” ANI quoted Vaishnaw as saying.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtually flag off the inaugural run of the Goa-Mumbai Vande Bharat Express from Madgaon railway station on Saturday morning, officials said. It will be the 19th semi-high speed Vande Bharat train in the country; a fourth train to run from Mumbai and a fifth one to run from Maharashtra.
Vaishnaw and Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant will be among those present for the event at the Madgaon railway station. The prime minister will show the green flag through video link to the train around 10.45 am and the train is likely to reach Mumbai around 6.30 pm, railway officials said here, as per PTI.
According to the officials, the regular service of the Mumbai-Goa train is expected to start from next week and it will run six days a week except on Friday.
The Vande Bharat train on the Mumbai-Goa route will have eight coaches unlike the usual 16 coaches. Currently, 16-coach Vande Bharat trains ply on CSMT (Mumbai)-Sainagar Shirdi, CSMT-Solapur and Mumbai Central-Ahmedabad routes, while another train runs between Nagpur and Bilaspur.
It is to be noted that Vande Bharat trains have ultra-modern features such as quick acceleration, on board infotainment and Global Positioning System (GPS) based passenger information system, automatic sliding doors, retractable footsteps, zero discharge vacuum bio toilets, among others.