Preparations are underway for the inauguration of the Puri-Howrah Vande Bharat on Thursday. The Ministry of Railways, meanwhile, is also getting ready to launch two more Vande Bharat Express trains this month between Guwahati and New Jalpaiguri as well as Delhi and Dehradun, while the Mumbai-Goa Vande Bharat is expected in June, officials said.
While the Puri-Howrah Vande Bharat will be flagged off on Thursday, the Guwahati-New Jalpaiguri train will be inaugurated next week around May 25-26. The Vande Bharat between Delhi and Dehradun is expected to be launched in the last week of the month, the official said.
“This month, we will be launching three Vande Bharat trains – Puri-Howrah, Guwahati-New Jalpaiguri, and Delhi-Dehradun. These are tentative dates,” an official aware of the matter told News18.
So far, 15 pairs of Vande Bharat trains are running across the country and, in the new financial year, the ministry has geared up their production and delivery. Since April 1, five pairs of Vande Bharat trains have been inaugurated.
Several states, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, have got their first pair of Vande Bharat in the last few weeks. Now, it is Assam and Uttarakhand’s turn. The Guwahati-New Jalpaiguri will be the third for West Bengal and first for Assam. Similarly, Delhi-Dehradun Vande Bharat will be first for Uttarakhand and sixth from Delhi.
News18 had reported last week that the ministry is increasing the production and delivery of Vande Bharat trains and is expected to launch at least five pairs of trains by the end of June, including the four mentioned.
On Tuesday, the trial for the Mumbai-Goa Vande Bharat train began, said another official. The train left for Madgaon in Goa from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CST) in Mumbai for the trial run. The two stations are already connected by a number of trains and travel time is around eight to nine hours.
When launched, this will be the fourth Vande Bharat from Mumbai. Currently, three pairs of trains for Gandhinagar, Shirdi and Solapur are operational.
The ministry has pushed the inauguration of the Ranchi-Patna Vande Bharat but it is still in the pipeline.
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