A 175-km-long stretch of railway line in Gujarat has been made waste-discharge-free zone as part of the Swachh Bharat Mission even as the Railways and Urban Development Ministries on Wednesday came together to jointly redevelop railway stations and adjoining areas on the lines of Smart City for enhancing passenger amenities and easy access to stations besides enabling optimal utilisation of land at railway stations.
The 141-km-long Okha-Kanalus route and the 34-km-long Porbandar-Wansjaliya sections in Gujarat have now become the green train corridors as all trains passing on these lines are now equipped with bio-toilets.
About 29 trains consisting of nearly 700 coaches have been provided with bio-toilets to prevent open discharge on the track.
Describing it as a "Deepawali gift" for the people from the national transporter, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said at an event here, "Earlier, some section in south India had become discharge-free corridor. Now a section in western India has also become the green corridor.”
Earlier in July, the 114-km long Rameswaram-Manamadurai section of Tamil Nadu was identified to make it a waste discharge-free train corridor and accordingly, 10 passenger trains consisting of 286 coaches moving over this section have been provided with bio-toilets.
Also, in a major initiative, railway stations and adjoining areas will be redeveloped on Smart City lines for enhancing passenger amenities, easy access to stations, enabling optimal utilization of land at railway stations, as a part of Smart City development.
On the occasion, a pact was also inked by the Ministries of Urban Development and Railways in the presence of Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu and Suresh Prabhu to redevelop railway stations on the smart city plans to ensure best of civic amenities for passengers.
Naidu said that the convergence based city development will result in qualitative improvement in city life and suggested involvement of local people in redevelopment plans.
He suggested that to begin with 10 cities could be taken up for the proposed redevelopment with the involvement of National Buildings Construction Corporation(NBCC) which has successfully executed redevelopment projects on self-financing basis.
These cities are Delhi, Bhubaneswwar, lucknow, Varnasi, Jaipur, Kota, Thane, Margao, Tirupati and Puducherry.
Prabhu said that railway stations have been the core of city development and have become congested over time and their redevelopment offers immense opportunities for changing city landscape. Stating that redevelopment work of Habibganj railway station has already been awarded and plans for Anand Vihar (Delhi), Surat, Bijwasan and Gandhinagar are in advanced stage.
To be implemented first in the 100 cities included in the Smart City Mission, redevelopment of railway stations will be undertaken in AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) and HRIDAY (Heritage Infrastructure Development and Augmentation Yojana) cities extending the scope of the MoU to over 500 cities.