Railway Ministry to setup sleeper variants of Vande Bharat Express for long range routes

The Center plans to launch a sleeper version of the Vande Bharat Express train for medium and long-distance travel, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.

The Vande Bharat Express is a home-grown super-fast train that currently runs on 10 routes in India, with plans to roll it out on more routes. The train is scheduled to run on the Bhopal New Delhi route, which will be the first early morning train from Bhopal on April 4.

In his written reply to a question by Lok Sabha MP Mimi Chakravarty, Vaishnaw clarified the work on developing sleeper train design for medium and long-distance Vande Bharat Express trains. Currently, 10 functional train pairs of Vande Bharat Express have chair cars in Executive and AC Chair Car versions.

"The prototype rake is expected to be manufactured in 2023-24," the railway minister said. The Minister was also answering queries regarding the basic fare on Vande Bharat trains. The basic AC Chair Class Vande Bharat Express fare is 1.4 times higher than AC Chair Class in Shatabdi Express trains.

The base fare of Vande Bharat Express Executive Class is 1.3 times the base fare for the same class in Shatabdi Express, Vaishnaw said.

The Union Minister also clarified that Vande Bharat Express trains were not meant to replace Rajdhani, Tejas, Humsafar, Gatiman and Shatabdi trains. The 10 pairs of Vande Bharat Express trains introduced on March 24 "were introduced as new services in the respective sectors," the minister clarified.