Railway minister dismisses reports of delay in Vande Bharat sleeper trains over design

Russian company Transmashholding said the firm addressed Railway Ministry's concerns with a change in design and sent it to the ministry for clearance, which, however, hasn't responded with its consent.

New Delhi: Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has dismissed media reports claiming delay in starting the manufacturing process for Vande Bharat sleeper trains due to design clearance issues.

During a media interaction on Thursday, Vaishnaw said that design was never an issue with the Russian firm roped in to manufacture these train sets.

Earlier, a section of media quoting officials from the Russian company Transmashholding (TMH) reported that Indian Railways demanded toilets and a pantry car in the train which necessitated tweaking the trains' design.

The reports further said the firm addressed Railway Ministry's concerns with a change in design and sent it to the ministry for clearance, which, however, hasn't responded with its consent.

As per the contracts, the firm is supposed to manufacture 1,920 sleeper coaches.

However, Vaishnaw said these reports were baseless as the real issues were with regard to the limited manufacturing capabilities of the firm because in Russia, trains have less number of coaches as compared to India.

"The firm doesn't have experience to manufacture a train set of more than six or eight coaches. We had clearly told them that we will give them design of Vande Bharat to follow. What they need is more manufacturing teams," Vaishnaw said.

He added, "I want to clarify that when the contract was signed, it clearly said that they have to manufacture train sets with coaches 16/20/24." According to the minister, the firm was clearly told that India has a bigger population so on some routes 24 coaches were needed, while 16 coaches were required on other routes.

Vaishnaw told mediapersons that since trains normally have six to eight coaches in Russia due to less population, the firm wanted to know why we need a train set with 16, 20 or 24 coaches.

The issues have been resolved and the work will start very soon, Vaishnaw said.