Railway station plan in limbo
NDA has to look into upgradation of city railway station
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-09-15 06:12 GMT
Visakhapatnam: The proposals for development of Visakhapatnam railway station into international standards has been pending for more than two years. The UPA government had planned to elevate the status of Vizag and Tirupati stations to international standards in 2012. As per the plans, various committees had visited Vizag and studied the status of the station. But the recent changes in theunion government pushed the proposals to cold storage.
After coming to a decision to turn Vizag station into international standards, the government had sent a parliamentary standing committee on railways led by T.R. Balu and observed the conditions here. Apart from this committee, forest and environmental standing committee under the leadership of T. Subbarami Reddy also studied the Vizag station. Both the committees had submitted their reports to the government.
Later, the government had to release funds as per the reports and requirements, but tenure of the government was completed and in the recent elections the Congress-led UPA government was defeated. So the proposals were automatically put on cold storage. Now again, the NDA government has to respond as per the demands from passengers and political leaders and again the parliamentary committee has to visit Vizag.
If the station is upgraded, new facilities like Internet kiosks, cafeteria, food court, clean and hygienic platforms, escalators with advanced technology, uninterrupted wifi services are to be provided and security measures have to be strengthened at the station, approach roads have to be widened as per the standards, spacious parking place and connectivity to airport have to be provided.
Two more platforms have to be added to the station. At present, trains are halting at eight platforms and after getting funds under this scheme the number of platforms have to be increased to 10. The authorities plan to expand the station towards Gnanapuram. Station manager C. Jena said, “Again a committee has to come to study the conditions. We are waiting for the visit.”