Inspired by Japan's Bullet Trains, Railways Aims to Finish Manual Cleaning of Vande Bharats in 14 Mins

The Indian Railways is aiming at a 14-minute “miracle” with the Vande Bharat. Starting October 1, the semi high-speed trains will be cleaned in 14 minutes instead of the three to four hours it takes to finish the task. And this feat will be achieved manually.

Inspired by Japan’s bullet trains, which are cleaned in seven minutes, staff will now aim at cleaning the Vande Bharat trains in 14 minutes. “For each coach of the Vande Bharat train, a total of four cleaning staff will be deployed and the task will be manually executed. Cleaning staff has received training for over a month and held multiple mock drills,” top railway sources told News18.

Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the initiative will be launched at Delhi Cantonment railway station. The cleaning system will be simultaneously launched in more than 29 Vande Bharat trains at stations including Shirdi, Solapur, Ahmedabad, Kasaragod, Puri, Guwahati, Ranchi, Chennai among others, and this will be a daily affair.

In January, Vaishnaw had spoken about the change in the cleaning process of India’s premium trains. Once this process becomes fully functional and effective, the railways will be adopting the same mechanism in all its trains.

“Lakhs and lakhs of passengers travel each day. It is only fair that their travel experience should be world class, and cleanliness is an essential aspect,” said a top source.

The indigenous Vande Bharat train was first launched between Delhi and Varanasi in February 2019. At least 68 of these train services are functional at present.