Passenger facilities received a fillip at the Mangalore Central Railway Station on Monday with the opening of a second, wider footbridge between platforms 2 and 3, as well as the launch of a cleanliness drive that would see the station become garbage-free.
The three-metre-wide aluminium sheet-covered bridge, which cost the Palakkad division of the Southern Railway Rs. 75 lakh, is situated close to the rear entrance (accessible from the car parking area) of the station. Officials said the rear entrance, hitherto closed, would serve as a second entrance to the station.
Surprisingly, the pedestrian bridge is not equipped with facilities for the people with disabilities or for senior citizens, who, if unable to walk long distances, will have to go in a wheelchair till the end of the platform, where a trolley way crosses the tracks.
MP Nalin Kumar Kateel said the bridge was a long-standing demand of the citizens in the city.
Other demands such as a local train to Subramanya from the city, a passenger train to Goa, additional trains to Kerala and an increased quota for Mangalore-bound passengers in existing trains would be placed before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways when it arrives in the city for discussions on Thursday, he said. Also inaugurated on Monday was a cleanliness drive, which ends on Thursday. Involving 50 students from the city, the drive aims at creating awareness among passengers on maintaining cleanliness. “Mangalore city has high-power jets to clean coaches, while station cleaning has been outsourced. The station, track, coach, yard will be cleaned, and more importantly, cleanliness will be maintained,” said Palakkad Divisional Railway Manager Piyush Agarwal. A New Delhi-based private company was in-charge of cleanliness at the station, he said.
