New Delhi/Udaipur: On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated nine Vande Bharat Express trains linking religious and tourism locations across 11 states, and he said the pace and size of infrastructure development matched the ambitions of 140 crore Indians.
While launching the Vande Bharat Express trains via video conference, Modi criticised previous governments for not devoting enough resources to the modernization of railways and promised that "the day is not far when Vande Bharat will connect every part of the country."
Each of the nine stops where the newly constructed, semi-high speed trains were flagged off by governors, chief ministers, union ministers, and elected representatives.
Schoolchildren and crowds of people greeted the trains as they stopped at each station, while public officials spoke at events along the route.
After boarding the Vande Bharat Express at Udaipur, Union minister Kailash Choudhary and Rajasthan BJP president C P Joshi rode it to Chhittorgarh, where a massive crowd of BJP workers cheered and chanted "Vande Mataram" and "Bharat Mata ki Jai."
More than 1.11 crore passengers have taken a ride on a Vande Bharat train, the prime minister announced in his speech.
He announced that Sunday would see the addition of nine additional trains to the Vande Bharat Express fleet, bringing the total to 25.
That "this speed and scale of infrastructure development in the country is exactly matching the aspirations of 140 crore Indians," as Modi put it, is a remarkable achievement.
Eleven states (Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala, Odisha, Jharkhand, and Gujarat) will benefit from the improved connectivity brought about by the nine trains.
The Indian Railways is the most relied upon travel companion among India's lower and middle classes. Train ridership on a single day "exceeds the total population of many countries," he remarked.
It's a shame that efforts to update Indian Railways were underfunded. But now, under our government's leadership, the Indian Railways are undergoing a makeover," Modi added.
The prime minister expressed confidence that the ongoing reforms on Indian Railways and in society as a whole will prove to be a significant milestone in the process of developing India.
A developed India by 2047, he remarked, requires the growth of every state and the development of every state's people.
Modi stated that "now we simply can not afford to keep any state backwards" after the country was severely harmed by the railway minister's state receiving the lion's share of railway development.
To proceed, he remarked, "we must have a vision of sabka saath, sabka vikas."
Flagged off by the prime minister, the new Vande Bharat trains will travel between the cities of Udaipur and Jaipur, Tirunelveli and Madurai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, Vijayawada and Chennai through Renigunta, Patna and Howrah, Kasaragod and Thiruvananthapuram, Rourkela and Bhubaneswar, Puri and Ranchi, and Jamnagar and Ahmedabad.
According to an official release, these trains represent a step towards achieving the prime minister's goal of enhancing connectivity across the country and delivering world-class services to rail passengers.
It claimed that "the Vande Bharat trains will be the fastest train along the routes of their operation and will help save considerable time of the passengers."
The statement predicted that the launch of the Vande Bharat trains will usher in a new age of rail service in the country.
It was also stated that these trains will represent a significant step towards providing common people, professionals, businesspeople, students, and tourists with a modern, swift, and comfortable means of transportation.—Inputs from Agencies