On Monday, the Indian Railway has decided not to manufacture Vande Bharat Express anymore in the current financial year, said Vinod Yadav, Chairman, Railway Board.
“The energy consumption of the train was much more than the world standards. We realized that when we do mass production, we cannot have such high energy consumption. So we decided to review the specifications that they become energy efficient. We will not be able to make any more Vande Bharat Express in 2019-20 but will produce 15 between 2020 and 2021, and 25 in 2021-2022,” he added. The issues with the train have been addressed and 40 more such trains will be produced till March 2022.
The Indian Railway will put in place a regulator as and when private operators take over to run trains. The regulator will look into various issues such as fares, the routes such trains can run on, along with the crucial aspect of safety, said Chairman Yadav.
The train service has gained traction amongst its travellers is hailed game-changer of the same kind of Rajdhani or Shatabdi did for the people’s mover. IRCTC will plan to run Tejas train on two routes- Delhi-Lucknow and, Ahmedabad-Mumbai Central, with the latter, expected to begin operations around December.
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