Kamakhya set to be world-class railway station!

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Feb 8:  Kamakhya Railway Station in Guwahati is set to be the first world-class railway station in the Northeast, along with 22 others in rest of the country. Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, through a video-conferencing, launched the station redevelopment plans of as many as 23 railway stations in the country from Delhi today.

The Station Redevelopment Programme is the largest transit-oriented development programme with a target cost of Rs 100,000 crore.

Dwelling at length on the programme, NF Railway General Mager Chahatey Ram said: “Kamakhya Railway Station will be a world-class station now. The approximate cost of development of the station will be Rs 228 crore. ‘Modified Swiss Challenge’ method has been adopted for the bidding process.”

Indian Railways have planned to redevelop 400 key stations in the country. Twenty-three stations have been selected for redevelopment in the first phase, and Kamakhya Railway Station is one of them. The redeveloped stations will provide amenities and services to the passengers in line with world-class railway stations. The project would be taken up on Public- Private- Partnership (PPP) model without straining railways finces.

Kamakhya is a junction station which would undergo a major expansion in view of sanctioned Doubling Projects of New Bongaigaon — Goalpara-Kamakhya and New Bongaigaon-Rangiya-Kamakhya and Quadrupling project of 4-line Elevated Track from Kamakhya to New Guwahati. The station would be developed to cater for increased number of passengers with a 40-year perspective. It is expected to handle approximately 40,000 passengers a day.

The developer would be provided encumbrance free vacant railway land measuring 50,000 sqm adjoining Kendriya Vidyalaya, Maligaon for commercial development to be given on lease for 45 years. In addition, they may also do commercial development of the air space above the station building. It is expected that the developer would not only fully fince the station development works out of the proceeds of the commercial development but would also generate surplus revenue for the Railways.

Some of the important items planned for development include (i) an iconic structure of the station with modern state-of-the-art facilities, congestion free entry/ exit to the station premises, segregation of arrival/departure of passengers; (ii) large concourse area with facilities like waiting area, lounges, wash rooms, cloak rooms, drinking water, ATM, catering, small retail, etc.; (iii) sufficiently large circulating area with provision for drop off, pickup and parking; (iv) integration of the station with bus and the planned metro railway and (v) flyover (4-lane) to connect circulating area on both side of the station directly with A.T. Road and a minimum 15-m wide road to connect circulating area on the south side of the station with NH-37.