9 Vande Bharat trains to boost religious tourism

New Delhi, September 23

PM Narendra Modi will on Sunday flag off nine Vande Bharat trains connecting religious and tourist destinations across 11 states.

The nine trains will provide faster connectivity across 11 states — Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala, Odisha, Jharkhand and Gujarat.

The PM will flag off the trains through video conferencing. The new Vande Bharat trains will run between Udaipur-Jaipur; Tirunelveli-Madurai-Chennai; Hyderabad-Bengaluru; Vijayawada-Chennai (via Renigunta); Patna-Howrah; Kasaragod-Thiruvananthapuram; Rourkela-Bhubaneswar-Puri; Ranchi-Howrah; and Jamnagar-Ahmedabad.

These trains are a step towards realising PM’s vision of improving connectivity across the country and providing world class facilities to rail passengers, an official statement said. “The Vande Bharat trains will be the fastest train along the routes of their operation and will help save considerable time of the passengers,” it said. As compared to the current fastest train along the route, Rourkela-Bhubaneswar–Puri and Kasaragod-Thiruvananthapuram, the Vande Bharat trains will cut travel time between respective destinations by about three hours; Hyderabad-Bengaluru by more than 2.5 hours; Tirunelveli-Madurai-Chennai by more than 2 hours.