BHUBANESWAR: The Railway Board on Monday revised its decision on the third Vande Bharat Express connecting Odisha. The semi-high speed train will now run between Visakhapatnam and Bhubaneswar instead of Puri and have two more halts.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off the train virtually from Vizag on Tuesday.
As per the proposed schedule, the train will run six days a week except Mondays. It will have halts at Khurda Road, Balugaon, Berhampur, Ichapuram, Palasa, Srikakulam Road and Vizianagaram between Bhubaneswar and Vizag. The total distance between the two cities will be covered in around six hours.
The train will depart from Bhubaneswar at 5.15 am and reach Visakhapatnam at 11 am the same day. In the return journey, the train will depart from Visakhapatnam at 3.30 pm and reach Puri at 9.30 pm the same day.
The earlier decision to introduce the train between Puri and Vizag was modified following demands from various quarters. Several rail users and eminent persons had requested Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw to either connect the train with Bhubaneswar or start from Bhubaneswar instead of Puri.
The state government had demanded the train on the Bhubaneswar-Hyderabad route after the Puri-Howrah Vande Bharat was flagged off by the PM in May last year. The Railway Board has, however, approved the train to ply between Bhubaneswar and the port city of Vizag. People have demanded to extend the train up to Hyderabad.
As a large number of people from Odisha are working and staying in Hyderabad and other cities in Andhra Pradesh, the service will boost intra-state connectivity and economic activities, they reasoned.
“The new train will have eight coaches including one executive coach and seven chair car coaches. It will have primary maintenance at Bhubaneswar,” read a communication from director (coaching) Railway Board to the general manager of East Coast Railway.