Nellore railway station overhaul derails comfort and convenience Premium

Sluggish pace of redevelopment at Nellore railway station has left passengers frustrated even as the ongoing project under Indian Railways’ Adarsh Station scheme has faced significant delays.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon, a joint family of 16, including five children and two elderly women, arrived at the Nellore railway station in Andhra Pradesh, in three auto-rickshaws. Their much anticipated weeklong trip to Hyderabad faced an immediate hurdle: their special train was indefinitely delayed.

The station was bustling with hundreds of passengers, many of them unable to find seating space on the platform or waiting halls, due to ongoing redevelopment works. Amid this chaos, the 16-member family spread a bedsheet on the platform floor as they waited inordinately for their train.

“Our train was delayed by nearly five hours,” says Shaik Azam, 60, a member of the family and a local trader. “Platforms 2-3 have no toilets, so we had to use the one in the general waiting hall on platform 1. Some others answered nature’s call in the open spaces. There was no water at the kiosks on platforms 2-3. We were forced to buy mineral water to even wash our hands,” he says.

The station’s condition has remained unchanged for the past couple of years, with minimal improvements aside from the occasionally functioning escalators, he rues. “The railway authorities have also failed to provide basic facilities like water and seating given the long pending redevelopment works.”

Frustration over inadequate amenities is shared by all passengers at Nellore, a Non-Suburban Grade-3 railway station under the administrative jurisdiction of South Central Railway (SCR). Despite being selected for the Adarsh Station Scheme, aimed at upgrading 1,253 stations across the country, the basic amenities remain unavailable.

As part of the ‘Redevelopment of Railway Stations’ project by the Union Ministry of Railways to offer world-class amenities to rail commuters, the SCR initiated the upgradation of Nellore station in August 2022.

The station, located on the Howrah-Chennai line established during the British era in 1899 and electrified in 1981, lies along the significant Grand Trunk route connecting Ongole, Guntur, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, and other major stations in Andhra Pradesh. Many passengers use this station for medical, educational, devotional, leisure, and business travel.