# First Vande Bharat sleeper prototype pushed to March 2026 2026-08-26T23:41:59+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) now expects the first prototype of the Vande Bharat sleeper train to roll out by March 31, 2026, three months later than the June 2026 deadline the company had previously set. RVNL Chairman and Managing Director Saleem Ahmad shared the update at the company's 23rd annual general meeting on August 26, according to a statement. RVNL's joint venture with Russian firm Transmashholding, Kinet Railway Solutions Ltd, is manufacturing the 120 trainsets, each with 16 coaches, at the upgraded Marathwada Rail Coach Factory in Latur, Maharashtra. Ahmad said the company commissioned 173.82 km of railway lines and 173 km of electrification in financial year 2025-26, and completed 23 km of tunnel excavation for hill railway projects across Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. RVNL has handed over 158 projects to Indian Railways, resulting in over 17,000 km of rail infrastructure. The company has also set up five joint venture special purpose vehicles for rail connectivity projects. ## Indian Opinion Analysis This is the second time RVNL has pushed the deadline for the sleeper Vande Bharat, which was initially meant to enter service by 2024 before the target was moved to June 2026 and now to March 2026. The sleeper variant replaces the current chair-car design and is meant for overnight inter-city routes, exactly where Indian Railways loses long-distance passengers to airlines. Each 16-coach trainset costs roughly Rs 100 crore by industry estimates, so the 120 trainsets on order represent a Rs 12,000 crore programme. Kinet Railway Solutions is the same Indo-Russian joint venture that was originally contracted to supply 80 trainsets before the order was expanded. The next hard deadline to watch is the March 2026 prototype rollout itself, and then the follow-on timeline for serial production. ## Coverage - indiatoday.in Leads with the deadline extension without framing it as a delay or failure, described as a company update This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Tags: Indian Railways, Kinet Railway Solutions, RVNL, Saleem Ahmad, Vande Bharat Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/first-vande-bharat-sleeper-prototype-pushed-to-march-2026/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/first-vande-bharat-sleeper-prototype-pushed-to-march-2026/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes. How this brief was made: an AI model read the report linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/