Rail stations to get facelift soon

Railway stations across the country are set to get a facelift with the railway ministry set to begin work on multi-functional stations and also carry forward the earlier plans of world class stations. These are some of the recommendations in the first report of the expert committee on railways led by Amit Mitra, which was submitted to railway minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday. The minister assured that these will be acted upon and said, "Rail Board will take care of their implementation."

The expert panel has identified 64 stations which will be turned into multi functional complexes with facilities like shopping complexes, budget hotels, IT infrastructure and dormitories. "The first batch of 12 stations will include Mysore, Indore, Haridwar, Burdwan, Digha and Udaipur," Mitra said, adding that another 20 stations would be taken up after that.

"The land acquisition for these has already been done. The construction plan will be cleared in the next 90 days and in the 120 days following that these stations will be turned into multifunctional complexes," Mitra said on Monday. While they are to be financed through the public private partnership route, initially the ministry may use bridge loans. A memorandum of understanding has also been signed between the Rail Land Development Authority and Ircon.

The expert panel has also called for a review of the modernisation of the New Delhi Railway station. With local administrative bodies having objections to the large scale revamp visualised under the project, the ministry now plans to set up a world class station at Anand Vihar and Brijwasan in New Delhi. Other cities to have world class stations include Habibganj in Bhopal, Chandigarh, Bangalore, Majerhat, Chennai and Secunderabad.

Meanwhile, railway ministry is also set to flag off the Duronto Express trains this Friday from Chennai to Delhi and from Sealdah to Delhi. The non stop trains would have fares cheaper than Rajdhani. Interestingly, they would also have a new class called AC Economy with fares less than AC III Tier. These would have larger coaches with 81 berths, instead of the usual 72.