India politics

Vande Bharat isn't a luxury. It's a much required evolution of the railways. EMU passenger trainsets are common all over the world. There's no point in sticking with locomotive driven separateable coaches other than for freight.

The main mistake here is how the railways is neglecting passenger requirements and safety. IR already has an indigenous solution for train accidents - Kavach, a cost effective implementation of the Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) requirement. Yet we find that in every single accident in recent history, the trains were not fitted with Kavach.

Another issue is about cheap general coaches and sleepers. The government cut their numbers, despite high demand. That's just pure dick move. This one could in fact be due to the government trying to make it more profitable before selling it off to their crony friends.

The thing here is that VB and general coaches are not mutually exclusive. You could have VB trainsets with general coaches. Even Sudhanshu Mani said that the reduction of general coaches is a bad idea.