Adilabad: Three railway stations in erstwhile Adilabad district were selected for development under Amrut Bharat Station scheme of the union government.
Mancherial, Adilabad and Basar were among 200 stations selected for the scheme which was introduced in February. The railway stations will be provided with drinking water, toilets, model malls complex, platform, modern ticket counters and escalator at an expenditure of Rs 10 crore to Rs 20 crore each.
Locals expressed happiness over the inclusion of three stations in the scheme. Verabelli Raghunath Rao, the Bharatiya Janata Party district president thanked the union government for selecting Mancherial station under the scheme.
He said that passengers would be able to find more amenities and better quality services with the help of the initiation. He added that the station would get a facelift soon.
In particular, a ticket counter, waiting hall and toilets are going to be created on the second platform of Mancherial railway station under the Amrut Bharat Station scheme.
Passengers have been demanding for establishing the counter on this platform for quite a long time. People residing in Hamaliwada, Gopalwada, Tilaknagar, Rajivnagar are currently forced to use the counter located in the first platform.
The Mancherial railway station, classified as ‘A’ grade, won two Swacch awards for maintaining outstanding cleanliness twice. It registers traffic of 15,000 passengers per day. It sees a stoppage of 17 train services per day. It records income Rs 1.5 crore through operating carrier services and around Rs 25 crore by way of goods services per month.
Considered to be a major destination of railway passengers in the district, the station had introduced both Wi-Fi and lift services in 2017.
The authorities of the railways have already submitted proposals to create basic amenities and a foot-over-bridge and escalator for the convenience of the passengers. Works of the foot-over-bridge and escalator are under progress.