New building for City rly station

New building for City rly station
By Nandini Chandrashekar, DH News Service, Bangalore:
The ever increasing demand for a few more basic amenities at the City Railway station will be considerably met soon.


A new building is going to be built at the Okalipuram entrance of the City Railway station and the work is expected to begin in a month’s time. The new building with multifarious facilities, will house passenger reservation, unreserved ticketing system and other amenities.

The swanky building will be coming up in the area adjacent to Platforms 7 and 8. Bangalore Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Akhil Agarwal stated that the tenders for the building were being finalised and the design had also been decided. The initial phase of the building would be completed in six months time, he added.

The building will have five floors in all, but the first phase of the construction will cover only the ground and first floor. DRM (Works) Alok Tiwari said that the ground floor would consist mainly of ticketing counters for reserved and unreserved tickets and a large seating area. The second floor would consist of a few more counters and a waiting area for passengers and a cafeteria.

A foot over-bridge which connects the new offices to the main entrance will also be constructed. That would align the two foot over-bridges in the opposing sides of the station. The first phase is being constructed at a cost of Rs 1.25 crores and subsequent floors of the building are likely to comprise of retiring rooms and more waiting halls.
The new construction will not disrupt, during the course of construction activities, any scheduled trains or the platforms they arrive at.

However, Railway officials say that people are so used to the Okalipuram entrance, that it would lead to a lot of confusion if the platforms were changed during the construction.