PATNA: As part of its station redevelopment plan, the East Central Railway (ECR) will give the Rajendra Nagar Terminal a facelift. Altogether 123 stations, including Muzaffarpur, Gaya, Begusarai and Singrauli, will also be redeveloped at a cost of Rs 50,000 crore under this ambitious plan of the railways.
The bidding process for the project, which is being executed by the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA), will begin in March, 2021. According to RLDA vice-chairman Ved Prakash, several foreign and Indian firms have already shown interest in the station redevelopment plan.
Danapur senior divisional commercial manager (DCM) Adhar Raj told this newspaper on Tuesday that the biggest advantage of the Rajendra Nagar Terminal was that it had a vast open space on its front that “can be used to construct a mall, cinema hall, food court and walkway”.
“The Rajendra Nagar Terminal, an ‘A’ category railway station, will have direct connectivity to the metro line in future,” Adhar added.
The railways has already installed escalators, ATMs, medical kiosks and introduced several amenities at the Rajendra Nagar Terminal to cater to the needs of the passengers. The station also has well-equipped washing pits and rake maintenance plants.
“It is perhaps the only terminal where the highest number of passenger trains originate from or terminate under the Danapur division,” Adhar said.
Talking about the redevelopment of the stations, a Railway Board official claimed that the project would be carried out in public-private partnership mode.
“The railways will develop restaurants, shopping zones, food courts and spacious parking lots at the stations to earn revenue. All platforms will have escalators and ATMs,” he added.