The Mumbai&ndash;Ahmedabad bullet train project was meant to be India&rsquo;s sleek, high-tech ticket to the future. Flash forward to 2025, and instead of zipping along at Shinkansen speeds, we&rsquo;re easing into things with the Vande Bharat&mdash;more commuter train than bullet train, really. Call it a family sedan on Ferrari tracks.
The government&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.benefitnews.in/india/dual-phase-rail-rollout--vande-bharat-on-bullet-tracks/4825">latest announcement</a> to swap out the iconic Japanese Shinkansen trains with the homegrown Vande Bharat has left people scratching their heads (and wallets). Why, you ask? It boils down to delays. Negotiations with Japan over train delivery have dragged on thanks to technical red tape, a messy land acquisition process, and loan conditions that favour Japanese manufacturers. The government, desperate to show progress, decided, &ldquo;Why wait for the Ferrari when we&rsquo;ve got a perfectly good sedan?&rdquo;
But here&rsquo;s the kicker: Vande Bharat trains run on India&rsquo;s broad-gauge tracks. The high-speed corridor? Narrow-gauge. Retrofitting is inevitable, meaning extra expense and engineering acrobatics to make this jugaad work. It&rsquo;s like buying a luxury yacht and then spending a fortune trying to fit a fishing motor on it.
The irony doesn&rsquo;t end there. Vande Bharat trains are already capable of running on India&rsquo;s existing broad-gauge network. So why are we bothering with costly upgrades to tracks designed for speeds of 320 km/h when the Vande Bharat maxes out at 180&ndash;200 km/h? It&rsquo;s a classic case of mismatched ambition. You don&rsquo;t need a racetrack to drive a commuter car.
Let&rsquo;s break it down:
1. <a href="https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/jugaad_1?q=jugaad" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jugaad</a> Mentality:&nbsp;The government has sunk ₹1.1 lakh crore into the high-speed corridor. Shiny new tracks have been laid, and someone has to use them. Rather than let the infrastructure gather dust, the government decided to roll out Vande Bharat trains as a placeholder. Function over form, they say.
2. Testing the Waters (or Tracks):&nbsp;Running Vande Bharat trains on the corridor is being pitched as a &ldquo;beta test&rdquo; for the infrastructure. Sure, it&rsquo;s a dry run, but testing Ferrari-grade tracks with a commuter train feels more like a simulation than a real trial.
3. The &ldquo;Look Ma, We Did It Ourselves&rdquo;&nbsp;Angle:&nbsp;By highlighting the indigenous Vande Bharat, the government gets to pat itself on the back for its "Make in India" initiative. The optics work, but the execution? Less so.
4. Public Perception:&nbsp;We were promised Shinkansen&mdash;sleek, futuristic marvels of Japanese engineering. What we&rsquo;re getting is more like a tribute act. It&rsquo;s the concert you go to expecting the Beatles, only to find a decent&mdash;but decidedly not revolutionary&mdash;cover band.
The real question is: Who benefits from this? Retrofitting Vande Bharat trains for narrow-gauge tracks costs money. Operational costs on high-speed tracks don&rsquo;t come cheap either. Yet the end result is a stopgap solution&mdash;fast, but not bullet fast. If anything, this feels like a win for optics over practicality.
While this might keep the project limping along, it&rsquo;s hard to ignore the missed opportunity here. India&rsquo;s first high-speed rail project was supposed to showcase cutting-edge innovation, not stopgap measures. Instead, we&rsquo;re left wondering: Did we just buy a 4K TV to watch VHS tapes? And more importantly, who exactly is winning in this race? Certainly not the taxpayer.

The situation is like finding a family sedan on a racetrack

Vande Bharat hits the high-speed rails—but not quite at bullet speed. Who wins here?

Bullet Train: Ferrari Dreams, Sedan Reality

Vande Bharat hits the high-speed rails—but not quite at bullet speed. Who wins here?

January 23, 2025 | 14:39 IST