Vande Bharat gets back on track after myriad controversies, vigilance probe

It is this huge business that, the government is hoping, may change the future of the Indian Railways and put the country on a faster development track'

On August 15 last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced from the ramparts of the Red Fort that the Indian Railways would launch 75 Vande Bharat Express trains by August 2023. Later, in her 2022 Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that 400 Vande Bharat trains will be manufactured in the next three years, which are expected to cost between Rs 40,000 crore and Rs 50,000 crore.

Those upbeat announcements come after a series of cancelled tenders, vigilance actions against officials and interdepartmental rivalry that delayed the addition of these iconic trains developed entirely indigenously by the Integral Coach Factory