Railways to build 400 new Vande Bharat trains

She added that 100 PM Gati Shakti terminals would be set up in the next three years

Aimed at providing smooth and comfortable journeys to passengers, Indian Railways will manufacture 400 new, energy-efficient Vande Bharat trains in the next three years.

Announcing this in the Union Budget on Tuesday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also said, " Railways will develop new products and efficient logistics services for small farmers and Small and Medium Enterprises.

Giving importance to a new area of business, the Minister said, the railways will take lead in the integration of Postal and Railways networks to provide seamless solutions for the movement of parcels.

Also Read | Railway Ministry allocated Rs 1.4 lakh crore in Budget 2022

The rail sector will also develop “One Station One Product”, which will leverage local produce carried on the railways.

Railways is already in the process of making the first instalment of 44 Vande Bharat trains, to have such trains running on at least 75 routes by August 15, 2023. In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that 75 Vande Bharat trains would connect different parts of the country by 2023.

According to railway officials, the 400 new Vande Bharat train sets are going to be made of light-weight aluminium, as against steel. This will be a departure from India’s traditional choice of metal for making its coaches. Since these trains will be made of aluminium, each train set is around 50 tonnes lighter in weight, consuming much less energy than their counterparts made of steel.

The cost of each train set is around Rs 25 crore more than current trainsets, which cost around Rs 106 crore per set of 16 coaches.

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The Finance Minister also announced that as a part of Atmanirbhar Bharat, 2,000 km of the network will be brought under Kavach, the indigenous world-class technology for safety and capacity augmentation in 2022-23.

"Railways will introduce new products and services for small farmers and small enterprises,” Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw posted on Twitter soon after the Budget.

The Railway Ministry has been allocated Rs 1.4 lakh crore in the Union Budget on Tuesday - Rs 20,311 crore more than the revised figures of the previous fiscal.

This year the Finance Ministry has laid out a total capital investment worth Rs 2.38 lakh crore from the railways, in which around Rs 1 lakh crore will be raised through Extra Budgetary Resources.

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