Southern Railways General Manager John Thomas said that the work on the additional two platforms at Mangaluru Central Railway Station will be completed by September 2022. The work has already commenced and the pit line work is set to be completed by next March.
The additional platform will help the railways to operate more trains to the Mangaluru Central Railway Stations as per the demands of the people of the district, he told mediapersons during his visit to the Mangaluru station for an annual inspection.
Earlier, Paschima Karavali Railway Yatri Abhivridhi Samithi members had submitted a memorandum, urging the Railways to expedite the work on the additional platforms.
The members said that the existing arrival hall at Mangaluru Central Railway Station was insufficient to cater to the current passenger traffic and the hall gets inundated in monsoon, urged the need to develop a second entry from Attavar side with the provision of a spacious area.
Following the demands, the GM said that the second arrival hall will be developed along with additional platforms.
On resuming the operation of the Chervathur-Mangaluru passenger train that catered to the needs of thousands of students from Kerala studying in Mangaluru, the GM said that the train service was suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As Kerala accounts for more than 45 per cent of the Covid-19 cases in the country, the services of several passenger trains are yet to resume.
Only after reviewing the prevailing Covid-19 situation and the threat of the spread of the Omicron variant is the Railways expected to resume all passenger service trains.
The members of Paschima Karavali Railway Yatri Abhivridhi Samithi in a memorandum had urged the Southern Railway to operate Train No 07377 /78 Vijayapura-Mangaluru Junction special express from Mangaluru Central (bay line platform) with nine coaches rake. Also, the memo called for operations of Train number 06489/88 Mangalore-Subramanya Road passenger with the same rake.
Besides these two trains, the memo called for the operation of Mangaluru Junction (Gommateshwars Express) Day Express up to Mangaluru Central with revised timings and to extend Train Nos 06484/85 and 06486/06487 Mangaluru-Puttur passenger train up to Subrahmanya Road.
Among other demands, activist GK Bhat urged the GM to extend train number 12133/34 CSMT Mumbai Express up to Mangaluru Central and provide a stop for Train No 12619/20 Matsyaganda Express at Mangaluru Junction. Bhat also called for daily operations of Train No 16585 Bengaluru-Mangaluru Central Express via Musuru Tri-Weekly Express and a new service from Mangaluru to Madurai-Rameshwaram via Palghat.
The GM promised to look into the demands for extending the train services to Mangaluru Central Station with the availability of platforms.
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