Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw spoke on the shortage of general coach issues on Thursday and said the government had planned to produce non-AC coaches to meet rising demand. He said the ratio of general coaches in a train is two-thirds, including sleeper and non-reserved. "And one-third is AC coaches - that has been the composition and that has been maintained," the minister said while speaking in the Lok Sabha. "However, as the demand for general coaches is rising, we have taken up the work of producing 2,500 coaches in the next few months."
Vaishnaw said as per the standard composition, every mail train should have at least 4 general coaches - "that composition will be done in all mail express". He also informed that for the future, the railways has taken up work for producing 10,000 general coaches to address the shortage and waiting list issues.
The Railways Minister, who has been under fire for repeated train accidents, also announced that the government has decided to produce 50 more 'Amrit Bharat' trains. He said a 1000-km journey in Amrit Bharat trains costs Rs 400-450. In January this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched two Amrit Bharat trains - Maldah-Bengaluru, and Darbhanga-Delhi.
Vaishnaw asserted that Prime Minister Modi's complete focus is on the poor and middle class and that is why development in trains is happening on that basis. He also thanked some opposition leaders for demanding Vande Bharat trains in their areas.
Earlier this year, the railways faced criticism when some passengers, who could not get confirmed tickets, traveled in AC coaches. In some instances, some passengers claimed that they could not enter their AC coaches despite having confirmed tickets as non-reserved passengers had jam-packed the coaches.
In a podcast, Sudhanshu Mani, who is considered the brain behind Vande Bharat, recently said that the central government perhaps made a mistake by not manufacturing enough non-AC coaches. He said there was more emphasis on manufacturing AC coaches, which led to a decrease in non-AC coaches.