New Delhi: The Indian Railways has so far maintained that the planned 44 train sets (also called rakes) of Vande Bharat Express will be introduced in 2021-22, but an internal estimate by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) shows that this could take six-and-a-half years to roll out.
In a letter to the Railway Board dated 14 July, the ICF, which manufactures rail coaches for India, said it would take 28 months to introduce the prototype rakes into commercial service. Additionally, it would take six months to start the series production, and subsequently, the supply of series equipment of each of the 44 rakes would take one month each.
In total, the whole process would thus take up to 78 months to complete, according to the ICF’s estimates. ThePrint has seen the letter.
This puts the estimated date for the rollout of all these train sets at 2027.
Sources told ThePrint that even though earlier this month, the Railway Board told the Prime Minister’s Office that the rest of the 44 trains will be completed in two years, it is next to “impossible” to achieve this target.
“It is a morale booster for the ICF to be picked for the production of these trains over any other global player, but it is next to impossible to achieve the two year target … Even the ICF timeline is a conservative estimate,” an official said on condition of anonymity.
Railway Ministry spokesperson D.J. Narain said the Railways is working according to the schedule, and they cannot comment unless they see the ICF letter.
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Vande Bharat train sets
The original version of Vande Bharat rakes — also called the T-18 trains — had taken just 18 months to cover the stages of conceptualisation, design, manufacture and rollout, and two of these rakes — built at a cost of approximately Rs 100 crore — have been providing trouble-free service on two routes: Delhi-Varanasi and Delhi-Katra.
However, the production of the rest of the 44 rakes has been mired in controversy.
The project has also faced delays since the earlier proposal to import the complete train sets from foreign manufacturers had led to opposition from political parties, senior officials and other stakeholders, who had criticised the Railways for going global when there was indigenous technology in-house.
The turf war between the mechanical and the electrical engineering departments had resulted in allegations of favouritism, safety compromises and other flaws, which, in turn, led to the transfer of top officials from the team.
As a result, there have been several delays in the project, with the latest being the third tender floated by the government in December 2019 with changes meant to create a level-playing field to bring down prices.
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