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The Ministry of Railways has signed an agreement with Tata Steel for providing seating system, panelling for 22 Vande Bharat trains as one of its vendors.

The Ministry of Railways has set a production target of 200 Vande Bharat trains over the next two years, besides setting a target to run the first sleeper version of Vande Bharat by the first quarter of 2024.

Keeping this in view, an agreement has been signed with Tata Steel to speed up the production work.

The seats in 22 Vande Bharat trains, from first AC to three-tier coaches, will now be manufactured by Tata Steel. The contract for making Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches of the train has also been given to the company, under which structures of panels, windows etc. are being prepared.

Under the scheme, the Railways has given a tender of about Rs 145 crore to the multinational steel company for manufacturing the parts of the train, which is to be completed in 12 months.

Debashish Bhattacharya, Vice President (Technology and New Materials Business), Tata Steel, said: "The seats of this train are specially designed, which can rotate up to 180-degree and have aircraft-like passenger amenities which are a first in India."