Roof, passage at railway station yet to be overhauled

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 17

Even after about three years, the Railways has not repaired the roof of a block at the entrance of the general waiting hall at the railway station.

Consequently, it is causing scores of problems. The public has to pass through an unsafe narrow passage to reach platform number 1A and this results in huge rush during the arrival and departure of trains.

In order to temporarily secure the area and discourage public movement, railway officials raised a nearly three-foot wall, which leaves a less than five-foot passage for commuters. In addition, raising of the wall provided an enclosure, which is being used as a space for dumping garbage by the public. A daily passenger, Pardeep Arora, said it had created an unhygienic environment at the entry and the exit gate, which is frequently used by the passengers.

He said generally departments dealing with high public footfall prefer to facilitate early exit, so that more and more people could come in to benefit from the mass transport service. However, railway authorities here seem to have learnt no lesson.

Northern Railway divisional engineer, in a letter dated September 9, 2014, had declared the roof around the erstwhile current-booking office and its adjoining offices, near the general waiting hall, unsafe.

The letter also stated, “Some portion of the roof of the said building has fallen during the heavy rains in the past few days. The roof is made of battens and tiles which were eaten up and weakened its strength. Walls and arches show cracks at various points.” It also admitted that “passengers stand in a queue round the clock to buy tickets under the said structure.”

In order to avert any untoward incident, the current-ticket booking windows were shifted to another location in the general waiting hall in November 2015.

Officials at the railway station stated that the repair of the block was in the pipeline besides other development projects.