India: Rahul Mithal, chairman and managing director of RITES, the export arm of national operator Indian Railways (IR), revealed the plans to the Mint newspaper.
“We are working on developing a standard-gauge (1,435 mm – Ed.) version of the Vande Bharat train and are also studying its export potential for the future,” he said. According to Mithal, neighbouring countries including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, along with several states in Latin America and Africa, have already shown interest in the project.
The export version of the Vande Bharat EMU is currently at the design and development stage. Production will begin once the first export orders are received. RITES is proposing to send at least one Vande Bharat trainset for trial operation to each of the countries that has expressed an interest in buying them.
“We will look at exporting these trains once domestic demand has been sufficiently met,” Mithal said. He added that, in the initial phase, India could export to neighbouring countries the series-built Vande Bharat trains designed for the 1,676 mm broad gauge. He cited the Indian train’s low cost as an advantage: according to Mithal, building a single 16-coach Vande Bharat trainset costs around Rupees 1.3-1.5 bln ($13-15 mln).
The Vande Bharat EMU platform was developed under the national Make in India programme in the late 2010s. As of December 2025, 164 such trains have entered service in 8, 16 and 20-car formations. They are currently produced in several variants with seating and sleeping accommodation. ROLLINGSTOCK previously published a detailed article on current orders for both variants of the Vande Bharat platform.
Mithal also said that RITES has recently been expanding exports of Indian-built rolling stock to countries in Africa and South Asia. A batch of 10 diesel locomotives built by the BLW plant (part of IR) was recently delivered to Mozambique, and deliveries of 200 passenger coaches to Bangladesh are now beginning. “We are keeping up a pace that lets us win at least one export order every quarter. This quarter we have already received an order to supply a further five locomotives to Mozambique,” he said.
