The production of Vande Bharat was stopped by the Railway ministry in Integral Coach Factory as the government aims to improve the product design in subsequent version of product. But the media establishment has come with completely different narrative of the story.
“This stoppage of work has caused a gloom among the suppliers in and around Chennai since they had worked equally diligently to make the project a success and had invested crores of rupees in developing new and high tech products. They believe that several multinational firms are behind the repeated stalling of the tender process, which had earlier resulted in development of low cost indigenous alternatives,” quoted The Hindu as statement of a Railway official.
Times of India came with a different narrative and blamed the tussle between mechanical and electrical lobby in the railway department as the reason for production halt. “This is why PSUs suck and should be privatised asap. Production of #Train18 comes to a halt at Integral Coach Factory as petty electricians backed by Railway Board chairman pull the plug on a project #India could be proud of. Such a shame. Accountability?” said prominent journalist Kanchan Gupta in tweet.
This is why PSUs suck and should be privatised asap. Production of #Train18 comes to a halt at Integral Coach Factory as petty electricians backed by Railway Board chairman pull the plug on a project #India could be proud of. Such a shame. Accountability? https://t.co/QQ8SMQZF4O
— Kanchan Gupta (Hindu Bengali Refugee)🇮🇳 (@KanchanGupta) August 9, 2019
However, as usual media rushed to sensationalize an issue it had no idea about.
It should be noted that Vande Bharat type trains have been developed successfully for the first time on Indian Railways, however, improvement in product design in subsequent version of product has always been endeavor of Railway Production Units and RDSO, in order to optimize its performance. RDSO is currently working in this direction to further improve upon the product design by making improvement in technical specifications.
Vande Bharat train manufactured at ICF during the month of October 2018 has been inaugurated by Hon’ble Prime Minister on 17th February 2019. The response of the public has been very good thus far and demands are coming for introduction of more number of such trains on different routes of Indian Railways. It is further informed that next Vande Bharat Express is likely to be started very soon on Delhi- Katra route.
Indian Railways plans to introduce Vande Bharat trains in a big way during next 2 to 3 years. The first lot of two rakes of this train has been developed indigenously at ICF under Make in India initiative.
According to sources, As soon as Research Design and Standards Organization (RDSO) is ready with the specifications, tendering process will be initiated at ICF in a transparent manner without any delay, providing level playing field to all prospective bidders in a transparent manner and in accordance with `Make in India’ policy initiative of Government of India as envisioned by our Hon’ble Prime Minister. It is expected that regular production of this train will be started at ICF during 2020-21.
Vande Bharat project has been one of the most successful indigenous projects in the country. Many countries has asked India to produce Vande Bharat Express coaches for them and it is among the major successes of Modi government’s flagship Make in India initiative. But over the period of time, many false or misleading stories about the project, even though all of these stories have been debunked promptly.