Southern Railway would soon take up the construction works on a parking facility and ticketing counter at the Attavar side entrance to Mangaluru Central, Naresh Laalvaani, Divisional Railway Manager (Palakkad Division), said here on Saturday.
Talking to presspersons here, he said that the contract of the project had been awarded.
The same contractor had been asked to give a proper shape to a portion of the parking area near the main entrance. The work on repairing a stretch of the road from the taluk panchayat office to the railway station would also be taken up. All these works would be taken up in four months.
Mr. Laalvani said that a tender would have to be finalised on having additional foot overbridge and platform shelter at the Attavar side at a cost of Rs. 1.8 crore. The Palakkad Division has proposed to the Railway Board to include Mangaluru Central in the list of 400 stations to be developed on a public-private-partnership model.
On the allegations that the Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Producers Union had not been allowed to have its stall on the platform No. 1 of Mangaluru Central, Mr. Laalvani said there was a cap on the number of stalls on each platform and the allocation was done accordingly. He said applications for setting up stalls in Mangaluru Junction had been called now.
On allowing CAMPCO to have its stall at two city railway stations, Mr. Laalvani said they need to go through fine print of the directives of the Railway Board and see whether CAMPCO was in the list of the milk cooperatives that should be provided space on the platforms.
