PM Narendra Modi likely to flag off East India's first Vande Bharat Express on December 30 in West Bengal

West Bengal is likely to receive a New Year gift in the form of a Vande Bharat Express, the first one in eastern India, on December 30.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to flag off this train from Howrah to New Jalpaiguri (NJP) in north Bengal on that day.

Modi is also likely to inaugurate the Joka-Taratala stretch of the Joka-BBD Bag Metro corridor virtually from Howrah station.

According to a highly placed source, the Howrah-New Jalpaiguri Vande Bharat Express will depart Howrah early in the morning and reach NJP in the afternoon. It will then return to Howrah in the late evening.

There is already a Shatabdi Express between Howrah and NJP. This train leaves Howrah in the afternoon and reaches NJP at around 10 p.m.

The Vande Bharat Express will certainly attract tourists travelling to the Hills in north Bengal and the Dooars as well as the state of Sikkim.

Particularly, those who do not wish to spend a night at Siliguri before travelling to their destinations.

PM Modi earlier inaugurated the Chennai-Mysore Vande Bharat Express train on November 11, the first such indigenously-built high-speed rail in the southern part of India.

This was the country's fifth Vande Bharat semi high speed train.

He also inaugurated Nagpur-Bilaspur Vande Bharat on December 13, 2022.

The Vande Bharat 2.0 trains have the KAVACH (Train Collision Avoidance System) for enhanced safety in operations. 

There will be improved security with four emergency windows added in every coach. 

There will be four platform side cameras including rearview cameras outside the coach instead of two earlier.

The Vande Bharat Express, also known as Train 18, is a semi-high-speed, intercity, electric multiple-unit train operated by the Indian Railways. 

It is an advanced version of Vande Bharat compared to the earlier ones, being much lighter and capable of reaching higher speed in shorter duration. It accelerates to 100 km per hour in just 52 seconds.

PM Narendra Modi has flagged off all the seven Vande Bharat trains in India. The first Vande Bharat trains run between New Delhi - Varanasi, second between New Delhi - Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra (J&K), third between Gandhinagar and Mumbai, fourth between New Delhi to Amb Andaura in Himachal Pradesh, fifth between Chennai-Mysuru and sixth, being the latest, runs between Nagpur-Bilaspur.