Berhampur railway station.(File Photo | Express)
BERHAMPUR: Berhampur railway station is vital for south Odisha as it is used by residents of not only Ganjam but also Gajapati, Kandhamal and other districts in the region. However, the station lacks basic facilities for passengers.
Over 7,000 people board long-route trains from the station while around 1,500 use it daily to travel to Chhatrapur, Balugaon, Bhubaneswar and Visakhapatnam. Even as the railways earn revenue of around `17 lakh daily from the station, it does not even have facilities like restrooms in all its platforms.
Sources said restroom is available only on platform no 1 while the rest three do not have the facility. The station does not also have a rest shed as a result of which passengers are forced to wait for their trains near the congested ticket counter or under open sky.
A project to renovate the station was taken up in 2021 but the work is moving at snail’s pace. As per the plan, a parking space and other offices of railways were to be constructed on around 20 acre land in front of the station. While the projects are yet to be completed, the lease for parking at the station, given out to three agencies, expired on March 3 this year.
In the absence of dedicated parking space, two-wheeler riders who used the lot regularly are unsure of where to park their vehicles.Two-wheeler theft is rampant at the railway station. In such situation parking at open space is unsafe, rued Bhagaban Panda, who works at the AG office in Bhubaneswar. Like Panda, Maguni Behera, a staff of collectorate at Ganjam uses the station daily to commute to his workplace.
Station consultative committee member and senior advocate Sanjit Panigrahy, in a meeting to look into issues at the station on Saturday, demanded basic amenities at the station. Panigrahy urged assistant commercial manager of Khurda division GR Nayak and other railway officials to make the lifts and fans at the station functional at the earliest.
