The first Vande Bharat Express was introduced w.e.f. 15.2.2019 between New Delhi and Varanasi. Presently, 10 pairs of Vande Bharat Express are in operation over the Indian Railways (IR) network.
Provision of Vande Bharat trains including other items of coaches comes under PH 21-Rolling Stock Programme (Carriages), for which an amount of Rs 19479 crore has been made available in Revised Estimate of Financial Year 2022-2023. Furthermore, IR has issued a production plan of 102 Vande Bharat Rakes (35 in 2022-2023 and 67 in 2023-2024) as per IR design within Indian Railways production Units ((Integral coach factory, Rail coach factory and Modern coach factory). Total 75 Vande Bharat rakes are planned as Chair Car version and remaining planned as Sleeper version. IR has also planned to manufacture 400 Vande Bharat trains (Sleeper version) of three different technologies for which Tenders have been floated to select Technology Partners for manufacturing within IR Production Units with IR manpower. In addition to the above, 8000 Vande Bharat Coaches have also been proposed under Budget 2023-24.
It has been proposed to progressively cover the Railway network with Kavach. At present, Kavach has been implemented on 1455 route km on South Central Railway. Further, contracts have been awarded for Kavach work on approximately 3000 route kms of Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah sections of Indian Railways and work is in progress.
In order to boost investment from industry in development of additional terminals for handling rail cargo, a new Gati Shakti Multi-Modal Cargo Terminal (GCT) policy was launched on 15.12.2021. These terminals will be constructed on non – Railway land, as well as partially or fully on Railway land. The target is to commission 100 Gati Shakti Cargo Terminals (GCTs) in three financial years i.e. 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25, out of which 30 GCTs have already been commissioned. So far, 145 applications for development of Cargo Terminals under the GCT policy have been received and 103 in-principle approvals have been issued.
