Get the Vande Metro routing right
A Vande Bharat train, in Chennai
| Photo Credit: R. RAGU/THE HINDU
The Vande Bharat trains have captured India’s imagination. But out of the 51 origin-destination (O-D) pairings with 82 VB rakes of Vande Bharat trains introduced by Indian Railways (IR), at least 10 O-D pairs have very low patronage. Since the Railways recovers only 47 paisa for every rupee it spends on passenger services, it stands to reason that before it introduced the Vande Bharat trains, the Indian Railways should have conducted a scientific identification of O-D pairs to guarantee that these trains are well patronised on all routes. However, that did not happen. Rough estimates indicate that the Indian Railways has been losing about ₹100 crore due to poor patronage of some of the Vande Bharat O-D pairs.The first V...