Dehradun-Lucknow and Meerut-Lucknow Vande Bharat Express are already operating via Bareilly. Meerut-Lucknow Vande Bharat has now been extended to Varanasi via Ayodhya and this train will start running between Meerut and Varanasi from August 27. The Izzatnagar division of the North Eastern Railway has started operating 15019/15020 Tanakpur-Dehradun-Tanakpur Express in one day up and down direction this year.
The Vande Bharat train scheme to connect the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand with cities like Mathura, Agra and Jaipur is gaining momentum. The survey of all the proposed routes has been completed and the train is expected to be operational by the end of the year.
The hope of running the Vande Bharat Express train from the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand has once again prevailed. This semi high-speed luxury train will connect Uttarakhand with major cities like Mathura, Agra and Jaipur. The survey of the route from Ramnagar, Kathmandu and Lalkuan to Jaipur via Bareilly, Badaun, Kasganj, Mathura and Agra has already been completed. Recently, after Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami’s request to Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, the Tanakpur-Agra-Jaipur and Tanakpur-Bareli-Delhi routes have also been surveyed.
Although there are enough trains from Dehradun to Delhi and Lucknow, train services are limited to cities like Rampur, Tanakpur, Katmandu and Lalkuan to Mathura, Agra, Jaipur and Bharatpur. There are currently no semi-high-speed trains available on these routes. In May, officials from Uttarakhand had held a meeting with DRMs and other officials of Moradabad and Izzatnagar divisions to improve rail connectivity in the Kumaon region.
In the meeting, options for Vande Bharat Express operation on routes like Lalkuan-Delhi, Lalkuan-Kanpur, Ramnagar-Agra-Jaipur, Ramnagar-Delhi and Tanakpur-Delhi were kept. Due to the fact that it is a hilly area, rail connectivity in Kumaon is limited, so the demand for a fast and convenient train like Vande Bharat has been made for a long time. A senior official of the North Eastern Railway said that the survey of the relevant routes has been completed and the operation is expected to be approved by the end of this year.