It is wrong to compare Vande Bharat with Rajdhani, just because both are premium trains. Rajdhani is for premium connection of various corners of the country with Delhi. You'll have a heart attack when you find out about halts of TVC Rajdhani in Kerala or SBC Rajdhani in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. People from various states across India use Rajdhani to commute to and from Delhi, as simple as that. Aligarh, Tundla people have plenty of local ICEs/MEMUs to travel to/from Delhi (Ghaziabad has Metro, now getting RRTS 😅).

Similarly if...
more...

someone from those small towns wants to travel to Odisha, they'll obviously choose other trains like Purushottam or Neelachal etc. (if at all Rajdhani is only what someone wants to travel on, they can travel to NDLS or CNB and board the train from there).

Meanwhile Vande Bharat is for premium high speed travel between a Metro city and another top city. Duronto takes 5.5 Hrs to travel between HWH and BBS. With another hour to Puri and just two more 1/2 min halts at only major cities in that route Kharagpur and Cuttack (ie, HWH-KGP-CTC-BBS-PURI) is covered within 6-6.5 hrs... You'll get MAD MAD rush on this train, irrespective of whatever is the fare. A 5 hour HWH-BBS premium VB journey (with luxurious seating and delicious meals) will be more preferred than a Kolkata-Bhubaneshwar flight journey.

Like I said, SER/ECoR don't have visionary leaderships/directors like other zones such as NR/WR/SCR... Dimaag lagana aata nahi inko, bas kursi garam karne aate hain, tankha lekar ghar chale jaate hain, with ZERO idea/interest in how to generate profits (only shortcut these zones understand for revenue/profits: Freight).