Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said Odisha will get more Vande Bharat trains connecting Puri and Bhubaneswar with Rourkela, Sambalpur and Jharsuguda after Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the first semi-high-speed train for the state on Thursday.
The minister, who was onboard the Odisha-West Bengal train throughout the journey till Howrah, told News18 that his ministry was aiming to connect all states with Vande Bharat trains.
“Very soon, we will connect Puri, Bhubaneswar with Rourkela, Sambalpur and Jharsuguda… We are also aiming to connect all the states with Vande Bharat,” Vaishnaw said.
Rourkela is the industrial capital of Odisha and is popularly known as Ispat Nagar and Steel City of Odisha.
Jharsuguda is also an industrial hub, consisting mainly of metallurgical industries. It has an airport and is also known as the ‘powerhouse of Odisha’. Famous for the Sambalpuri Saree, Sambalpur is a textile hub of Odisha.
The minister said the Puri-Howrah route was selected as it is very popular.
“Puri is a holy land and has a place on the world’s tourism map. It is important in terms of religion, heritage, culture as well as history. A lot of passengers come on this route," he said.
Vaishnaw added that the route is part of the Golden Quadrilateral. “We will not stop here. We will be expanding this route as well,” he said.
Operating between West Bengal’s commercial city Howrah and Odisha’s temple town Puri, the latest train is now the fastest between the two stations covering the distance in around 6 hours and 30 minutes.
This train is roughly one hour faster than the Shatabdi that was already running between the two stations.
During the inauguration of the Puri-Howrah Vande Bharat and even before that, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his government had demanded these semi-high speed trains on at least two routes — between Puri and Rourkela connecting Sambalpur and another train between Bhubaneswar and Hyderabad.
Railways is running these Vande Bharat trains on 16 routes currently and this number is expected to go up as more Vande Bharats are being launched.
Since April 1, six pairs of Vande Bharats have been inaugurated. Vaishnaw said with enhanced production, the delivery of these trains will be faster and more routes will be connected.