Rail Vikas Nigam Limited floats SPV for Nellore railway station development

Nellore: A team of officials from Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) have visited Nellore Railway Station recently for preparing plans for development of the station with world class facilities. Indian Railways had already sanctioned Rs 60 crore for the station development.

The RVNL officials have decided to undertake station development by creating a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). It may be recalled that the South Central Railway (SCR) General Manager (GM) Vinod Kumar Yadav informed during his recent visit that a technical team would visit Nellore railway station to make plans for station development.

As per initial plans, the RVNL will take up widening of platforms, concrete roofs for all offices or sections located on the platforms, setting up restaurant on the first floor with a direct escalator facility connected with the platforms for quick movement, and other facilities at the station. There are also plans to construct a hotel, commercial complexes, and dormitories with air-conditioned facility.

Even though, the station is having huge chunk of open lands in its surroundings, they have been encroached by local people with the support of politicos which turned out to be a major obstacle for development of the station.

So, officials are initially planning to vacate the encroachers and then start work with the help of top revenue officials. SCR GM also assured that they would maintain safety precautions for the passengers and another foot overbridge in Nellore along with escalator facility.

The existing foot overbridge would be widened to 6 metres as part of expansion. Construction of foot overbridges already started in Nellore South Station where people were facing difficulty to cross the railway line which is surrounded by residential areas, hospitals and colleges.

Further, even though the Railway Road Over Bridges (ROBs) were sanctioned at Kondayapalem gate and BV Nagar gate centres and the Indian Railways already had matched its portion of funds to the state government.

GM clearly informed to the local politicos that they had handed over the grant portion according to their share, but the state government has to take care of the rest. Now, there are huge lands close to the Nellore Railway Station and some have already been evacuated. But, still, a petrol pump is existing on the main road which was arranged long back and alienated to many people subsequently.

Now, the Railways is continuing legal battle to evict the people for constructing a state-of-the-art hotel for convenience of the passengers which would be managed by IRCTC or other wings.

The team of RVNL officials considered all these issues and scope for further expansion and prepare a report to be placed before the GM for final shape, sources said. Rs 400 crore was also earmarked for Tirupati railway station for making it a world class station keeping in view of huge throng of devotees across the country.