NEW DELHI, Dec 3: The overall punctuality of Indian Railways’ Mail and Express trains was 77.12 per cent in 2024-25 and about 80 per cent from April to October in 2025-26, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply on Wednesday.
Responding to questions on the punctuality of trains, Vaishnaw said that Indian Railways makes all possible efforts to run trains on time, but several factors — including foggy weather, path constraints, asset maintenance, alarm chain pulling, agitations, cattle run over and other unforeseen circumstances — affect their punctual running.
He also said that the overall occupancy of Vande Bharat Express trains was around 100 per cent.
Speaking on the Sleeper variant of Vande Bharat train, he said it has been indigenously designed and developed. “Two such rakes have already been manufactured and are under extensive trials or commissioning,” Vaishnaw said.
Asked for an update on the bullet train project, Vaishnaw said that currently, the 508-kilometre Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail Project is under execution with technical and financial assistance from the Government of Japan.
“High-Speed Rail projects are highly capital intensive and any decision for taking up new project is based on many factors such as technical feasibility, financial and economic viability, traffic demand and availability of funds and financing options,” the minister said. (PTI)
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