In a major plan to boost passenger amenities, the Indian Railways plan to spend ₹12,000 crore to upgrade major railway stations across the country. Of the 21 stations identified in the first phase, six have been chosen from Southern Railway comprising the States of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.

After reviewing the ongoing modernisation works of railway stations, a proposal for the introduction of “major upgradation of Railway Stations on Indian Railways” costing ₹12,000 crore under the Head of “Passenger Amenities” would be processed for inclusion in the supplementary budget for the year 2021-22.

The Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) had developed the Master Plans of stations that would be included in the major upgrade scheme. While a detailed note on the scope of work would be communicated soon after the scheme is notified under the Umbrella Work of the Supplementary Budget, 2021-22, General Managers of eight Zonal Railways were told to initiate preliminary work nomination and prepare draft for inviting tenders.

Under the Southern Railway, Madurai, Rameswaram and Kanniyakumari in Tamil Nadu; Ernakulam and Kollam in Kerala; and Puducherry stations have been identified for the scheme in the first phase.

Other prominent stations are Tirupati and Nellore (South Central Railway), Surat in Western Railway, Gandhi Nagar, Jaipur and Udaipur in North Western Railway; Pragyaraj and Kanpur in North Central Railway, and Ghaziabad and Lucknow in Northern Railway.

The Railways have a total of 7,325 railway stations with a running track of 99,235 km. Dozens of these stations were developed with modern amenities in the recent years under schemes such as “World Class Stations”, “Multi-Functional Complexes”, “Adarsh Stations” and “Touch and Feel” Scheme.