In a major policy decision, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has done away with the categorisation of railway stations effected by his predecessor Suresh Prabhu and ordered a recategorisation to make it more “practical and rational”.
Goyal has directed to re-categorise railway stations taking into account earnings, passenger footfall and strategic importance with a view to plan various passenger services and passenger amenities at stations in a more effective and focused manner.
While Prabhu’s criteria for station categorisation was based on the annual passenger earnings only and it were categorised into seven blocks - A-1, A, B, C, D, E and F, Goyal’s re-categorisation of railway stations have been revised to include even footfalls at the station.
This is not the first time that Prabhu’s decision has been reviewed - categorization of stations for the appointment of Station Directors from the IRTS cadre was one of them. last week, Goyal, who was appointed after Prabhu faced lot of criticism, also appointed a high level committee to review the controversial flexi fare in the passenger services of Indian railways. A few departments too have been either dismantled or clubbed to facilitate a combined effort towards holistic development of the national transporter.
“The new format will also help the passenger to have a better experience in relation to travel amenities at stations. In the old criteria, the number of stations with high passenger footfalls (handling high number of commuter and MST pass holders etc.) could not be covered in the higher category of station which led to these stations being eligible for lower level of amenities. As per the new criteria the number of footfalls has also been given equal weightage and is taken into account as criteria for categorisation of stations,” explained a railway senior official.
Goyal's team has further segregated stations based on the type and clubbed into three groups i.e. non-suburban (NSG), suburban group (SG) and Halts (H). These groups have been put in grades ranging from NSG 1-6, SG 1-3 and HG 1-3 respectively. Presently, there are 5976 Non-Suburban Railway Station, 484 Suburban Railway Stations and 2153 Halts, which makes total number of stations as 8613. This categorization of stations has been done for the period 2017-18 to 2022-23.
Several stations of Maharashtra like Kalyan, Panvel, Tambaram and Thane have qualified into the higher category and become eligible for higher level of passenger amenities. The Zonal General Managers have been empowered to categorize a station as NSG-4 category if it is a place of Tourist importance and/or is an important junction station.
In another significant decision, Railways has mandated amenities to be provided at all the stations irrespective of their category for safe performance of journey by passengers. These facilities include foot over bridge (FOB), high level platform, trolley path for movement of wheel chair while for further for improving upon the stations at lower category of stations, the waiting halls, platform shelters, lifts and escalators and digital charts display has been ordered. "In view of the new criteria even the small station will get the higher level of amenities which will lead to better passenger satisfaction," said the official.