City station to ‘lift’ spirit of commuters

City station to ‘lift’ spirit of commuters

August 13th, 2009
By Our Correspondent

Bengaluru
Aug. 12: South Western Railway (SWR) is set to provide railway commuters with new lifts at the unconnected platforms to be operational at the City Railway Station in a few months’ time. The long-awaited escalator project may also see the light of day with the railway board in the final stages of the project.
To make the station more user-friendly for its 1.5 lakh-strong daily commuter base, work has begun on the new lifts that will connect the platforms to the subway. Presently, only platforms 1, 7, 8, 9 and 10 have lift facilities. Once the new lifts become operational, all the platforms excluding 4 will be accessible by an elevator.
“This move has been done to help the physically challenged and also passengers carrying heavy luggage. However, Platform 4 could not be fitted with a lift due to the lack of space at the platform,” said the SWR divisional railway manager, Akhil Agrawal.
The new lifts will have the capacity to carry a load up to 3,000 kilogram.
The cost of installing a lift will range between Rs 25 and 27 lakh.
The railway board initiative to provide the station with an escalator has also come as a relief to passengers who usually had to shell out a good amount of money to the coolies to carry their luggage.
“The board is finalising the tender for an escalator at the City Railway Station. Once the tender is processed, we will start the work. The escalators can be expected soon,” said a SWR senior official. The escalators that will be installed at the station will be different and costlier than the normal indoor escalators with price ranging between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 75 lakh.