Indian Railways Planning To Set Up 58 Vande Bharat Maintenance Depots

With more and more Vande Bharat trains being operational, Indian Railways has drawn up an action plan to set up maintenance facilities across the country to support the non-stop operation of the semi-high speed service.

According to the railways, 58 maintenance coaching depots are being planned at an estimated cost of Rs 18,000 crore for providing maintenance support to Vande Bharat trains.

While seven Vande Bharat trains are already operational, about 70 more are expected to roll out in the next two years.

While the last Union budget had announced manufacturing of 400 Vande Bharat trains, the upcoming budget on 1 February is also slated to announce 400 more such trains.

These trains are faster, easier to maintain, consume less energy and have greater flexibility in operations. But the railways need dedicated facilities in depots and workshops for maintenance of these trains.

In order to ensure high reliability and availability of train sets, necessary maintenance infrastructure has to be planned and developed simultaneously.

According to the railways estimate, it will cost Rs 312 crore to upgrade a depot which includes Rs 65.85 crore for civil, Rs 131.8 crore for mechanical and Rs 13.48 crore for electrical engineering works.

The railways has drawn up a plan of about ₹18,000 crore to scale up its locomotive maintenance facilities for Vande Bharat trains, eyeing an increase in deployment of these semi-high-speed trains to more parts of the country.

The upgradation will enable speedier expansion as the lack of adequate maintenance depots across the country has emerged as a key roadblock in the roll-out of these trains in many parts of the country.

The depot upgrade works will be carried out across the country to ensure that the Vande Bharat trains that are planned for introduction over the coming months can be maintained appropriately.

In his Independence Day address in 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that 75 Vande Bharat trains would connect every corner of the country.

At present, there are seven Vande Bharat trains running with the latest having been flagged on 30 December, connecting Howrah Railway Station to New Jalpaiguri.

The eighth Vande Bharat train is slated to run between Secunderabad and Visakhapatnam on 19 January.