Those who believed that catching trains from platform number four and five is not just practical may have to change their opinion as the Ranchi Railway Divison has made a foot-over-bridge (FOB) operational and linking the last two platform of Ranchi Railway station. The bridge was inaugurated on Saturday by General Manager of South Eastern Railway, Radheshyam.
“Ranchi Railway has been always focused at improving passenger amenities at the station and in the past we have provided a lot of facilities to the passengers,” said the GM.The bridge is first of its kind girder type FOB constructed in SE Railway by construction organisation, Ranchi. The 6.10m wide with span of 25 metre has been built at a cost of Rs1.3-crore and it took about 12 months to reach in its final shape. About 105 million tonnes of steel have been used in erecting the bridge.
The bridge connects platform number two and three with platform number four and five thus saving time and distance of those who board the train from the last two platforms at the station. Passenger can reach the platforms directly from outside instead of taking different routes. “Earlier passengers were made to walk for about half-a-kilometre to reach platform number four and five but the distance has been cut short by this bridge,” said Divisional Railway Manager of Ranchi, Deepak Kashyap.
Notably construction of new platform— 4&5 at Ranchi Station was sanctioned in the year 2008. The construction of new 580m long high level platforms were commissioned in year 2012 with extension of one 3.05M wide FOB at Muri end. Passengers had to face lot of inconvenience in reaching FOB at Muri end and had to walk for almost 500 m to reach the other end. Hence the extension of present 6.1m wide FOB from PF 2&3 to PF 4&5 at Hatia end was extremely important for the convenience of passengers, said a press communiqué from Ranchi Railway.
The GM also assured to look into safety concerns and expressed that the division will get some security personnel as part of the pan-India recruitment being done by the Indian Railways. Radheshyam allayed the concerns of food quality and encouraged reporting of lapses in the services offered on board a train. Meanwhile, member of Railway Advisory Committee at Ranchi, Ashok Nagpal presented a charter of demands to the visiting GM and requested to develop Hatia and Namkum stations as model railway stations. Nagpal also demanded transfer of officials who have been at Ranchi from a long time. He also urged the GM to call a meeting of DURCC.