Modi reached Rani Kamalapati railway station in Bhopal from where he flagged off the five trains - two physically and three in virtual mode.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Madhya Pradesh Governor Mangubhai Patel, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Jyotiraditya Scindia, among others, were present on the occasion.
"These trains will improve connectivity in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Bihar and Jharkhand," Modi said in a tweet on Monday.
This is for the first time that so many Vande Bharat trains have been launched in a day.
These semi high-speed trains are: Rani Kamalapati (Bhopal)-Jabalpur Vande Bharat Express, Khajuraho-Bhopal-Indore Vande Bharat Express, Madgaon (Goa)-Mumbai Vande Bharat Express, Dharwad-Bengaluru Vande Bharat Express, and Hatia-Patna Vande Bharat Express, as per an official statement. The new routes for the Vande Bharat Express trains will include Mumbai-Goa, Bengaluru-Hubballi-Dharwad, Patna-Ranchi, Bhopal-Indore, and Bhopal-Jabalpur. The simultaneous operation of five Vande Bharat trains on the same day marks a first for the Indian Railways. With the new launches, the total number of Vande Bharat trains in the country will increase to 23 trains.
This is the Karnataka’s second Vande Bharat Express train. The first one runs on the Mysuru-Chennai route, which was also the first semi-high-speed train for the Southern region.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Bengaluru-Hubbali-Dharwad Vande Bharat Express train, along with four other Vande Bharat trains through video conferencing on June 27. In a first, the Indian Railways is going to launch five Vande Bharat Express trains simultaneously.
