Ahmedabad: Western Railway has planned to introduce a new Vande Bharat Express train connecting Ahmedabad to Udaipur. The train may start in later part of January or in February this year. The proposal has been moved to introduce this train as the electrification work on Ahmedabad – Himmatnagar – Udaipur route has been completed.

The new train will be operated six days a week, barring Tuesdays. The train will leave Udaipur at 6.10 am and reach Ahmedabad at 10.25 am. The train will have only stoppage at Himnatnagar for two minutes(9.10 am to 9.12 am and 6.58 pm to 7.00 pm). In return journey, the train will leave Ahmedabad at 17.45 and reach Udaipur at 22.00 hours. In Ahmedabad the train will originate and terminate at Asarwa railway station.

When contacted the tourism industry persons in Udaipur welcomed the introduction of Vande Bharat Express connecting Udaipur to Ahmedabad. However they said the timings of the train on both directions could be better if they were in match with the check-in and check-out hours (usually around 12 noon) of hotels. The major traffic from Ahmedabad to Udaipur is for liesure tourism and pilgrimage to EKlingji and Shrinathji. The timings if could be in match with tourism(hotel stay check-in/out hours) and pilgrimage purposes(Shrinathji and Eklingji mandir timings), the train could attract more occupancy. They also said that lot of people from Mewar region choses Ahmedabad airport to fly and board train to various destinations. The Vande Bharat Express will emerge as the best option for them as well. There are however concerns regarding lack of provision of Daungarpur as a halt.

The train shall have 8 AC chaircar coaches. Udaipur is already connected to Jaipur and Agra through Vande Bharat express trains. Proposed Ahmedabad – Udaipur train will take four hours to travel between two cities. A road journey takes around five hours time to reach Udaipur.

Local Lok Sabha member of udaipur, Mannalal Ravat has welcomed the decision to run Vande Bharat Express. He has also demanded Vande Bharat trains to Indore and Surat from Udaipur. DeshGujarat