Railway Minister Vaishnaw announces flagging off 4 Vande Bharat trains

Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday announced that around four Vande Bharat trains will be flagged off every month from September.

During the National Railways Award ceremony, Vaishnaw said, "We have resolved to take Railways to new heights, at par with global standards. From September onwards, every month 4-5 Vande Bharat trains will be flagged off and work for bullet trains is also in progress."

Earlier on Friday, an official statement from the Indian Railways said that besides the two Vande Bharat trains already operational in India from New Delhi to Varanasi and New Delhi to Vaishnodevi Katra, two more Vande Bharat semi-high speed trains are expected to come up by August.

These two upcoming trains are in their final stages of manufacturing by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai.

This is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement on Independence Day last year that 75 new Vande Bharat trains would come up to mark the country's 75 years of independence, connecting 75 big towns across the country.

In her budget proposals, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced 400 new generation Vande Bharat trains with better energy efficiency and passenger riding experience to be manufactured in the next three years.

Notably, Vande Bharat is the country's first semi-high speed train. The test speed of the train is 180 kmph, while the maximum speed is 160 kmph.