India manufacturing 17,000 general and non-AC coaches over 5 years: Ashwini Vaishnaw
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India is manufacturing around 17,000 general and non-AC coaches over the next five years, Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed the Lok Sabha Wednesday. Speaking in the lower house, the minister said the number of general class coaches (sought by lower income families) has substantially increased over the last few years.'About 70% of the total 82,000 coaches are general class and non-Air Conditioned (AC),' he said while noting that seat-wise, almost 78% of the 69 lakh seats offered by the Indian Railways are under the non-AC and general class categories.The Railways operates about 25,000 AC coaches.'We have taken up a program of manufacturing 17,000 general coaches and non-AC coaches,' Vaishnaw added. The Indian Railways operated an average 13,940 passenger trains every day in 2024-25, up from 13,169 trains in 2019-20.Responding to a query on the deployment of India's indigenous Automatic Train Protection technology, Vaishnaw said Kavach has already been deployed on 1548 Route Kilometre (RKm) on South Central Railway and North Central Railway.'Work is in progress on Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah corridors (approximately 3000 RKm). Track side works on these routes have been completed at about 2200 RKm as on July-end,' he said.Commenting on Vande Bharat trains, the minister said 144 Vande Bharat train services are operational on the Indian Railways network. The overall occupancy of Vande Bharat Express trains in fiscal 2024-25 and 2025-26 (till June 2025) stood at 102.01% and 105.03% respectively.According to official data, the number of passengers in general or unreserved coaches during 2024-25 stood at 651 crore, up from 609 crore a year ago.An official statement said the Indian Railways has introduced fully non-AC Amrit Bharat trains, presently comprising 11 General Class coaches, and 8 Sleeper Class coaches. Production plan of 100 such trains is currently underway.
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