Patna railway station will soon get four escalators and four lifts for the convenience of passengers.
The junction, which receives over 1.75 lakh passengers every day, is one of the busiest stations on the East Central Railway (ECR).
It already has an escalator connecting platform number 10 to the middle of the foot overbridge.
Railways has decided to add four more escalators and four lifts .
Two escalators would come up at the main entrance near platform numbers 1 and 2. The other two escalators would come up at platform number 4 and 5.
Similarly, two lifts would come up at the entrance of the gate and two others at platform number 6 and 7.
The project costing Rs 5.2 crore is scheduled to start in the first week of August. The work has already been awarded to the agencies concerned.
ECR officials claimed the lifts and escalators would become functional within three months after commencement of work.
"The lifts would come as a boon to passengers, especially for the elderly and handicapped ones," said ECR chief public relations officer Arvind Kumar Rajak. "On several occasions, we have found cases where wheelchair-bound patients were travelling by train and faced lots of problems while having to cross from one platform to the other to reach their train. In such cases, lifts would be of great help to them."
Rajak added that the railways is making all-out efforts to provide better amenities to passengers and these initiatives are part of those efforts.
In the coming days, the escalators and lifts will also be installed at other railway stations in the ECR, like Danapur, Rajendra Nagar, Hajipur, Ara and Buxar.
Passengers expressed happiness over the coming up of these facilities at Patna railway station.
"It would be really good if Patna railway station gets lift and other facilities. I think these are signs of a developed railway station," said Shivam Gupta, a resident of Boring Canal Road. "Many railway stations like Delhi, Vijaywada, Pune and Chennai already have escalators facilities and lifts are available at Delhi's Ajmeri Gate railway station."
