Indian Railways to revamp 50 stations for Rs 7,500 crore this year

The redevelopment project of Piyush Goyal-led Railway Ministry will revamp railway stations across the country in order to improve security as well as passenger flow management.

Around 50 Indian railway stations are going to be revamped this year as the government plans to invest Rs 7,500 crore in their renovation. The Indian Railway Station Development Corporation (IRSDC) is planning to give an airport like facelift to the railway stations across the country.

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The Piyush Goyal led Railway Ministry will redevelop the stations with facilities such as separate arrival and departure areas, improved security and passenger flow management, a recent HT report stated. IRSDC is a special purpose vehicle (SPV) floated by the government to design and develop new stations and redevelop existing Indian railway stations across India.

While there will be separate arrival and departure areas, existing systems will continue to function at railway stations that are less crowded, IRSDC Managing Director SK Lohia was quoted as saying in the report. The arrival and departure areas will be segregated depending on the space availability, either by different levels or through partition at the same level, Lohia added.

The passenger waiting area will also be moved to concourses for passengers waiting to board the trains at railway platforms, he said. According to the report, IRSDC under this renovation and redevelopment project will initially focus on overhauling 50 railway stations through public-private partnership (PPP).

The stations identified for the facelift include Anand Vihar, Bijwasan, Chandigarh, Shivaji Nagar, Surat, Baiyyappananhalli, Nagpur, Gwalior, Amritsar, Gandhinagar (Jaipur), Sabarmati, Kanpur, Thakurli.

The redevelopment work is currently going on at Habibganj and Gandhi Nagar (Gujarat) railway stations which will be the first state-of-the-art railway stations of Indian Railways with world class amenities like the ones at the airports.

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