PATNA: The railways is likely to commission Pataliputra Station located on Bailey Road near Rukunpura in the state capital in March next year. Work on this project is going on in full swing at an estimated cost of Rs 7 crore.
According to chief administrative officer (CAO) Maduresh Kumar, the railways has completed construction of three platforms at the station to fulfil the needs of both traffic movement and passengers. These platforms have been built to accommodate a load combination of 24 bogies, he said, adding the railways would build two more platforms in future as per requirement to cope with increasing traffic load after commissioning of the Ganga rail bridge by the end of 2012.
The CAO said that the earth work on the southern side right from the Phulwari FCI godown to the Bailey Road is complete. Tracks on about eight km route have been laid.
The new Pataliputra Station building will have all modern facilities like food plaza, cyber cafe, deluxe toilets, pay and use toilets and a provision for parking about 100 vehicles in the circulating area, he said.
According to ECR CPRO Dilip Kumar, the railways would complete the alignment work on priority basis. This will help the railways in rushing heavy bridge materials directly to the site by goods trains. The railways has started work on superstructure portion of the bridge. In that case the railways would have to rush iron materials frequently to the site. The commissioning of Pataliputra station would help the railways to expedite the Ganga bridge fabrication work too, he said.
The CPRO said that the new station would reduce traffic pressure on Patna Junction. It is being linked to both Danapur and Phulwari-Patna routes so that passengers could travel easily in these directions. Besides, the Pataliputra Station will have facilities like spacious waiting hall, ticket booking counters, passenger reservation system ( PRS), full sheds on platforms, high-level platforms, parcel office and sprawling circulating area, he said, adding the railways has provided proper lights too.
According to sources, the railways has now planned to build the new Pataliputra station as a terminal station keeping in mind arrival of all incoming trains from north Bihar which would terminate there. Besides, the railways intends to build four washing pit lines at the Pataliputra station to maintain passenger train coaches.
Since Danapur and Patna stations are close to Pataliputra, the railways are planning to make these two old stations as the terminal points only so that passengers could easily board trains for north Bihar side from there, sources said.
Read more: Pataliputra Station likely to be commissioned in March – The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/Pataliputra-Station-likely-to-be-commissioned-in-March/articleshow/7164606.cms#ixzz19FgsLGSa