Rs 240 cr budget, global advisers for Anand Vihar, Delhi's link with the east

New Delhi, Feb 19 Anand Vihar Terminal railway station, which connects the national capital with eastern states, will get a major makeover in the coming days. Besides beautification, world-class facilities for visitors will also be introduced at the station.

According to Railways ministry sources, Rs 240 crore will be spent on facelifting and upgradation of the railway station and a tender inviting proposals from global consultants is being floated for the purpose. For the redevelopment, a stipulated time of three years has been set by the Railways.

Under the project, a residential facility, three-star budget hotel, and mall, along with a coaching institute area will also be developed within the terminal premises. The complete blueprint for the same was prepared even before the Corona period.

In addition, plans have been made to widen the Railway Over Bridge at Anand Vihar as the existing bridge structure is not capable of handling the traffic. Along with this, there is also a plan for a signal-free corridor that will connect East Delhi's Anand Vihar to West Delhi's Zakhira.

The corridor was first planned in 2012, but its execution has been delayed, mainly due to objections from the Railways that a major portion of the corridor will run along railway tracks.

According to the Railways, in view of the Union Budget 2023-24, 13 railway stations, including Anand Vihar, will be rejuvenated under the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme in the national capital.

The Anand Vihar Terminal railway station was officially inaugurated on December 19, 2009, by the then Union Railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and the then Chief Minister of Delhi Sheila Dixit. Spread over 42 hectares, it is one of the largest railway stations.

The terminal, located in east Delhi, mainly handles eastbound trains.

Earlier, long-distance trains from Delhi used to ply from three stations namely Delhi Junction (Old Delhi), New Delhi and Hazrat Nizamuddin. These stations lacked the infrastructure facilities to handle high passenger rush. With increasing passenger pressure at the existing stations, the requirement for additional major passenger terminals was identified by the Northern Railways. Further, the eastbound trains from Delhi to the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand West Bengal and other North-eastern states had to cross the bridge over the Yamuna river as all the three stations are located on the other side of the river. Thus, the area of Anand Vihar was selected in the trans-Yamuna region to construct a mega-railway terminal.

The station has seven platforms and 12 railway tracks which are connected to the eastern, northern and other rail routes of the country. The terminal has the capacity to handle over three lakh passengers and 270 trains per day.

Basic amenities like ticket booking counters, waiting rooms for disabled people, reservation halls, toilets and luggage offices as well as foreign exchange counters, touch-screen inquiry systems, ATMs, food plazas, retiring rooms, a computerised ticketing facility and a large parking lot are conveniently available here.

The announcement to build this station was made in 2003 by the then Union Railways Minister Nitish Kumar. Subsequently, the Northern Railway floated a tender to appoint consultants for Phase-I of the project in the same year. However, the work was completed and inaugurated in 2009.

Initially, the station had three platforms, a coach maintenance yard and auxiliary lines to Shahibabad Junction. The first phase took about Rs 850 crore and five years to complete.

The railway terminal has been linked with the Anand Vihar Interstate Bus Terminal (Vivekananda Bus Terminal) and the nearby Anand Vihar Metro Station of the Delhi Metro, thus turning it into a major one-spot transportation hub of Delhi.

Although the station continued to operate below its capacity until the stampede at New Delhi station on May 16, 2010, the number of trains at this station increased later. Also, the number of platforms at the station was also increased from 3 to 7.

Today this railway station leaves behind even the New Delhi railway station in terms of cleanliness. Regarding cleanliness, Anand Vihar Terminal is number 26 in the country while New Delhi is in 165th place.

At Anand Vihar, platform tickets are given free of cost for doing sit-ups 30 times within 180 seconds.

Two years ago, under the Fit-India campaign, the Ministry of Railways installed these unique squat machines at Anand Vihar Railway Station to make people aware of fitness. One has to stand in front of the squat machine and get his (or her) face scanned by the camera installed on the machine and if the squats are found to be on time, he (or she) gets a platform ticket for free.