Two railway stations, one in Gurgaon and the other in Delhi, will soon see world-class makeover. The Delhi Division of the Northern Railway has embarked on an ambitious project to modernise the Gurgaon railway station and rebuild the existing Bijwasan station in Delhi to world-class standards. The revamped Bijwasan station will cater to all west-bound trains, including those headed for Jaipur, Surat and Mumbai.
The revamping and redevelopment of the Bijwasan railway station will make it the fifth major station in the national capital. This will decongest and smoothen crowd movement and ease rail traffic at the existing terminals in New Delhi, Old Delhi, Anand Vihar and Hazrat Nizamuddin stations.
The Gurgaon railway station presently handles the traffic of 19 pairs of mail/express trains and 12 pairs of other passenger trains. The Delhi Division, Northern Railway, has taken a number of steps to improve the infrastructure and provide better passenger amenities. The Gurgaon project will be implemented in two phases in the short and long terms. The short-term plan has already been in action since May 2015, under which the authorities have already modernised several parts of the station by widening the entrance area to the station premises, renovating the circulating area with granite marbles, building separate toilets for men and women. Provision has also been made of clean drinking water, sewage treatment facilities and an adequate number of dustbins on the platforms, keeping in mind the Prime Minister’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. To improve the ambience of the station, attractive murals have also been installed on the platform walls and a separate green patch has been developed to promote a green and clean environment.
Under the long-term plan, Northern Railway intends to decongest the existing single entrance to the station, extend the station building, make provision for executive lounges for upper class passengers and general waiting lounges as well, and build another foot overbridge to avoid unsafe crossing of tracks by passengers. The Gurgaon station is being modernised at a cost of about Rs 10-11 crore, with Rs 7 crore already been spent. Gurgaon MP and Union Minister Rao Inderjeet Singh has contributed Rs 60 lakh from his MPLAD funds for the project.
Arun Arora, Divisional Railway Manager, Delhi, told The Sunday Guardian: “Gurgaon or the Millennium city had been chosen for this purpose as it has witnessed rapid urbanisation in the past few years, thereby becoming a leading financial and industrial hub. The existing station was not being able to handle the increasing passenger and freight traffic and thus we decided to give it a facelift and transform it into a modern station.” The Gurgaon station has also been commercially beneficial for Indian Railways owing to the Maruti car plant in Manesar and this attracts a significant amount of freight revenue, he said. “The car plant has been given 128 rakes by Railways during the April-October 2015 period, leading to Railways earning Rs 25.09 crore, which has been instrumental in the development of this station,” Arora said.
With Indian Railways placing great importance on transport-oriented development and decongestion of Delhi, plans are also underway to revamp the Bijwasan railway station in Delhi into a world class station in the next few years under the Greenfield Project through PPP mode. Primarily, it will cater to west-bound trains. The Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation (IRSDC) received approval for the master plan of the Bijwasan project in October 2015. Work is expected to begin sometime next year.
“Extensive development work would be undertaken by the IRSDC in two phases at a cost of Rs 91.47 crore. The revamping will include development of the station building and circulating area, construction of adequate number of FOBs, escalators, elevators, etc. It is aimed to provide world class passenger facilities. It would also have grade separated entry and exit with close connectivity to the Metro station and equipped with parcel facilities. Train maintenance facilities will also be provided, including adequate train washing, wagon and carriage maintenance facilities, power carshed, electric and diesel locomotive sheds along with six stabling lines and two shunting necks. The area surrounding the station will also be commercially developed,” Arora said.
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