Puducherry railway station upgrade to be expedited

Southern Railway GM directs agency to expedite Puducherry station redevelopment. Mr. Singh, accompanied by officials, was briefed on the ₹72 crore project which includes modern amenities, integration with other modes of transport, provisions for differently abled, and green building. The cost of re-development is to be recouped through leveraging commercial development of railway land/airspace. GM then proceeded to Villupuram junction for modernisation/upgrade works under Amrit Bharat scheme.

R.N. Singh, General Manager, Southern Railway, has directed the agency tasked to redevelop the Puducherry railway station into a state-of-the-art rail terminal to expedite the project.

Mr. Singh, who travelled from Chennai to Puducherry by a newly launched steam heritage special train that was being put on a test run on the stretch, was briefed on the status of the project by representatives of TUV India, the project management services company, which is executing the end-to-end redevelopment, right from design formulation to commissioning, through the Chennai-based Engineering Projects India Ltd, the EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contractor for the redevelopment.

The heritage special is a hybrid train that has ultra modern coaches with the driving trailer car of the MEMU retrofitted to give it a steam engine appearance that also emits clouds of “smoke” as it pulls into or leaves a station. The steam heritage special with the GM and an entourage of officials had left Egmore at about 9.30 a.m. and reached Puducherry shortly after scheduled arrival of 12.30 p.m.

Mr. Singh, who was accompanied by Southern Railway officials, was also provided a presentation on the scope and scale of the project.

The ₹72 crore project envisages redeveloping the Puducherry railway station with state-of-the-art amenities such as congestion-free non-conflicting entry/exit to the station premises, segregation of arrival/departure of passengers, adequate concourses without overcrowding, integration of both sides of city wherever feasible, integration with other modes of transport system like bus and user-friendly international signage.

It includes provisions for differently abled, harmonious co-existence of the railway station and real estate projects, green building among others on the Design, Build, Finance, Operate, Transfer (DBFOT) model.

Puducherry is among the 62 railway stations selected across the country for redevelopment on a Public Private Partnership model under Smart City Projects initiatives. The Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA), an organisation under the Ministry of Railways, is the nodal agency for the redevelopment of railway stations across the Indian Railway network.