Jamshedpur, Aug. 30: The Chakradharpur railway division has set fresh deadline of January for dedicating two facilities-lifts and escalators- to the passengers at the A 1-category Tatanagar railway station.
Sources in railway’s engineering division said that after a meeting at its headquarters Chakradharpur railway division fixed the new deadline.
Confirming the development railway’s assistant engineer S.K Das who is monitoring the projects said that work for both the projects would gain momentum and that they would try to meet the deadline.
“It is our ambitious project and we are looking forward to make it success. The lift and the escalator are projects aimed at providing benefits to passengers, especially the elderly ones. An expert private construction firm has been roped in for executing the twin projects. We will place orders for the escalators and lifts after the foundation work gets completed, ” he said.
The South Eastern Railway (SER) headquarters in Kolkata has already sanctioned Rs 1-crore for the twin projects which will come up on platform Nos. 1 and 3. Both the projects will come up at the Kharagpur end of the railway station.
Station manager at Tatanagar O.P. Sharma said that the twin projects will make the station more passenger-friendly. Significantly, the A 1-category Tatanagar railway station is the first station in the division to be selected for the escalator and elevator ( lift) project. Tatanagar is the most busiest railway station under Chakradharpur division which witnesses a daily footfall of around 50,000.
Officials at the railway’s electrical engineering department revealed that along with the pair of escalators, which will connect platforms one and two, a lift has been proposed at the railway station to make railway journey easier for the elderly and the indisposed.
According to plans, platform No. 1 will be equipped with an escalator ( or moving stairways ) , a lift and a ramp. Platform Nos. 2 and 3 will have ramps while the rest two platforms — 4 and 5 will have the facility of a lift and a staircase. The total project is estimated to cost over Rs 2 crore.
Tatanagar, the second busiest station of South Eastern Railway, will be the second to boast the escalator facility.
Howrah station in Bengal, the busiest on the South Eastern Railway network, has escalators connecting its old and new complexes. The facility was introduced in 2011.