Rail India Technical and Economic Services (RITES), a leading railway PSU, has contracted ItalCertifer, an Italian State Railway Group company, to conduct the Independent Safety Assessment (ISA) for Vande Bharat sleeper trains.
Integral Coach Factory (ICF) Chennai, a production unit under the Railway Ministry, has awarded the contract, RITES said.
The Consortium’s responsibilities include verification of test results, final safety acceptance assessment, and design evaluation.
RITES, the only ISA-certified Central Public Sector Enterprise, has started a new business era with this contract and said it is committed to taking forward ISA functions by leveraging its expertise in the quality assurance area.
RITES, a Navratna PSU, has long been a significant player in India’s transport consulting and engineering sector, boasting a diverse range of services and wide geographical specialties. The company has run projects in more than 55 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, South America, and the Middle East for over 50 years.
Meanwhile, Indian Railways introduced the Vande Bharat Express, India’s first semi-high-speed indigenous train, an example of the success of ‘Make in India’. On 15 February 2019, the first Vande Bharat Express train was flagged off on the New Delhi-Kanpur-Allahabad-Varanasi route.
The Vande Bharat Express has the same travel categories as the Shatabdi train albeit with better facilities and can run at a maximum speed of 160 kmph.
The Vande Bharat sleeper edition will have a total of 16 air-conditioned coaches: one first class, four second class, and eleven three-class coaches, which will carry a total of 830 passengers.
Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav had said in March this year that the first Vande Bharat sleeper train could hit the tracks in the next six months.
