Ashwini Vaishnaw flagged off the Pune-Danapur Amrit Bharat Express from Hadapsar, Pune

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Flagged off the inaugural run of the Pune-Sainagar Shirdi Express

Lay the Foundation Stone for Pune Yard Remodelling and Other infrastructure works from Pune station

Pune: Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister, Maharashtra, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Railways, Information & Broadcasting and Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India in the august presence of various dignitaries flagged off the inaugural run of the Pune-Sainagar Shirdi Express and laid the Foundation Stone for Pune Yard Remodelling and Other infrastructure works at a function at Pune railway station on 17.06.2026. Minister of Railways flagged off the Pune-Danapur Amrit Bharat Express from Hadapsar, Pune.

The Chief Minister, Maharashtra graced the event through video conferencing. Murlidhar Mohol, Minister of State for Cooperation and Civil Aviation, Government of India, Ram Shinde, Chairman, Maharashtra Legislative Council, Chandrakant (Dada) Patil, Minister of Higher and Technical Education, Parliamentary Affairs, Govt. of Maharashtra, Vivek Kolhe, Member of Legislative Council and other dignitaries were present during the event.

Speaking on the occasion Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Railways said with a population of 70 lakh plus and the increasing number of passengers, Pune needed a Mega Terminal. Various infrastructure works with an investment of Rs. 600 crores has been planned including Yard Remodelling works at Pune, Construction of 6 new platforms in addition to extension of existing 6 platforms making it a total of 12 platforms at Pune station, New Entry point at Pune, Terminals at Alandi, Coaching Maintainence depots at Ghorpadi etc These works will enable running of 20 additional train services from Pune.

Shri Vaishnaw also stated that work on re-development of 132 stations in Maharashtra is on a war footing which includes CSMT, Pune, Hadapsar, Kolhapur, Satara, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Jalna, Nashik Road, Nagpur and others. He also stated that development work in our country is more challenging since it is done without disturbing the existing train services, unlike other countries where work is usually done by shutting down the services completely.

The Minister also reassured the passengers that the route for the Pune-Nashik Road rail route has been finalized and also a new train service between Nanded and Mumbai will be started. He also announced introduction of Vande Bharat Sleeper train in Maharashtra soon.

The Minister gave a brief view of the days to come with the introduction of Bullet trains when travel time between Pune and Mumbai will be 48 minutes and between Pune and Hyderabad will be 2 hrs and 08 minutes. He stated that the operations of the 1st section of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train Project will start in 2027. These projects will bring the cities of Hyderabad, Pune, Thane, Vapi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad closer.

Later at a function organized at Hadapsar, Ashwini Vaishnaw inspected the Pune-Danapur Amrit Bharat Express train and interacted with school children and various railway employees. The Minister of Railways also flagged off the Pune-Danapur Amrit Bharat Express in the august presence of Chetan Tupe, Member of Legislative Assembly and other dignitaries.

Rajeev Shrivastava, General Manager, Central Railway and all other Senior Officers of Central Railway were also present during these functions.