Chennai: “Amrit Bharat 2.0 will provide affordable service and high quality travelling experience for people in the lower income and lower middle income category”, Union Minister of Railways and Information and Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Friday.
Speaking to reporters at the Link Coach Factory premises here, he said that Amrit Bharat 2.0 has been designed based on the experience of Amrit Bharat 1.0, which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year and the experience of Vande Bharat sleeper trains.
The Minister highlighted the 12 major improvements that have been made in the entire train.
They included Semi-automatic couplers, modular toilets with new type of construction materials, strong pillar and partition, emergency talk back features, EP assisted brake system, newly designed seats and berths, pantry car in new design, continuous lighting system like Vande Bharat, fire detection system, gangways, external emergency lights, charging sockets along with mobile phone holders are the key features of Amrit Bharat 2.0.
Stating that 50 such coaches will be manufactured in the next two years, Mr Ashwini Vaishnaw
said that Amrit Bharat trains will provide comprehensive services to the people at a very low cost, based on Prime Minister’s mantra of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas”.
He said these trains will provide a better travelling experience and high-quality service to those travelling long distances.
Replying to questions, Mr Ashwini Vaishnaw said for the safety of train passengers, accident-preventing devices have been installed in 10,000 train engines, so far.
Recalling that an accident was averted due to early detection of a bolt being removed from a point machine near Chennai, the Minister said that now such bolts are manufactured in a new design and are installed in the point machine in such a way that no one can remove it.
To another question, the Minister said with the completion of the construction of the railway line between Jammu and Kashmir,a dream has come true. This railway line, which is more than
100 km long, has about 97 km of tunnels and about 6 km of bridges.
The Minister said that the Safety Commissioner has completed the speed test for train traffic on this line.
Later, Mr Ashwini Vaishnaw inspected the production of railway wheels at the Ramakrishna Thidakar Private Factory located in Puduvayal village in neighbouring Tiruvallur district.
During the inspection, Southern Railway General Manager R.N. Singh, ICF General Manager Subrao and others accompanied the Minister.
Later, speaking to the media, Mr Ashwini said Railways requires 80,000 strong and durable train wheels and for this, a train wheel manufacturing factory has been established in collaboration with
a private company under the “Make in India” scheme.
He said this company will start production in February 2026 and the wheels manufactured in this company have the potential to be used domestically as well as export to foreign countries.
UNI
