India will look to float tenders for rolling stock for high-speed bullet trains within this year, while trial runs could become reality in 2026, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister for Railways, said on Friday.

According to him, 140 km of pillars for the high-speed rail have already been constructed.

Railway officials said 98.87 per cent of the land has been acquired for the 508-km-long route—98.76 per cent in Maharashtra and 98.91 per cent in Gujarat. The cost of the bullet train project is estimated at ₹1.08 lakh crore.

The Budget for 2023–24 mentions that an allocation of ₹40,184 crore has been earmarked for the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited for the bullet train project. Of this, while the budgetary support amounts to ₹19,529 crore, another ₹20,592 crore will be raised through internal and extrabudgetary resources (PSUs, markets).

“Rolling stock for bullet trains should be ready by 2026, and we will be floating the tenders sometime this year,” Vaishnaw said .

Vande Bharat export

According to him, India will emerge in “three years” as a major exporter of Vande Bharat trains.

Work is underway to ramp up production from the current one train per week to around two to three trains per week over the next few years.

Apart from the Intergral Coach Factory in Chennai, ramp-ups in manufacturing are expected at Sonepat in Haryana, Latur in Maharashtra, and Rae Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh.

Work is also underway in designing Vande Bharat trains with sleeper coaches and Vande Bharat metros for short-distance inter-city travel.

“There is excitement globally about Vande Bharat trains. But we are still some time away from generating export inquiries. However, I have no doubt that in the next three years we will emerge as one of the key exporters,” Vaishnaw said.

Ticketing system

Indian Railways, he said, has also initiated a plan to upgrade ticketing facilities to 225,000 per minute, up from the existing 25,000 per minute. At the same time, response time to inquiries will be increased to 400,000 per minute, as opposed to the existing 40,000 per minute.

The re-haul of the back-end infrastructure is already underway, and it is expected to be complete by September 2023.

“Necessary security arrangements will be in place,” Vaishnaw added.

Some 2,000-odd stations will also have 24X7 convenience stores coming up under a new “Jan Suvidha scheme.” Most of these will be run by local entrepreneurs.

The target for new line laying in FY24 is pegged at 7,000 km, or almost 20 km per day, as against the current target of 4500 km (at 12 km a day).

comment COMMENT NOW