City railway station all set to be decongested soon

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 6

With a view to decongest the city railway station, the railways is all set to shift operations of at least six trains to nearby Chheharta railway station. This is the outcome of plan for developing satellite railway stations to reduce congestion on trains.

Eight platforms are inadequate to accommodate daily average of 76 trains arriving and departing from the local railway station. Giving average 10 minutes of time to each train, picking passengers up and dropping them off, which means roughly 10 hours are consumed in arrival and departure of trains.

Chheharta railway station, which falls between Amritsar and Attari, is about four-km from the city railway station.

Final touches are being given to the city railway station and it will cost about Rs 61 crore. Three new platforms have been raised and a new railway line and administrative building have been provided.

In addition, two new washing lines are also being laid and upgradation of its infrastructure is underway.

Chheharta station is used to load and unload merchandise and earns a monthly revenue of Rs 9 crore. This facility would be shifted to Khasa railway station.

Sources in the railway stated that though it would take some more time in completing entire civil work at the satellite station but train movement would be commenced soon. However, plan to develop another satellite railway station at Bhagtanwala is rather slow.