Giving in to the rising complaints about inconvenience faced by passengers in reaching different platforms at Secunderabad railway station, South Central Railway (SCR) finally commenced installation of lifts and escalators in the station.
Everyday over 250 trains arrive and depart from Secunderabad station transporting close to 1.40 lakh passengers. Provision for lifts and escalators has been a long-pending demand from passengers, especially elderly people and physically challenged persons. An escalator was installed at Vijayawada railway station some six years ago. Faced with criticism, SCR authorities are now installing two lifts at platform No. 1 and 10 on the station premises. These 16-member capacity lifts are being installed at a cost of Rs.45 lakh each. This apart, authorities are also constructing seven escalators on platforms no.1 to 9 at middle foot-over-bridges in the station. A few staircases were also dismantled on different platforms to facilitate construction of escalators, which cost about Rs. 90 lakh each.
“Efforts are on to complete works at the earliest. If things go as planned, lifts would be operational from January and a couple of escalators would be ready by March,” says SCR spokesman.
Similar facilities are also being planned at Kacheguda and Hyderabad railway stations. Everyday about 36,000 and 43,000 passengers are transported to different destinations from these two stations respectively.
Authorities are planning to install two lifts and three escalators at Kacheguda while Hyderabad railway station will have no lifts and instead have two escalators. In all, over 30 lifts are being installed at major railway stations across SCR limits, he adds.
