Patna: Passengers, especially senior citizens and differently-abled persons, can heave a sigh of relief as two escalators are coming up soon at Patna Junction. These will negate the need to climb steps of the overbridge to get to different platforms.

Rajesh Kumar, chief public relations officer (CPRO), East Central Railway (ECR), said: "It is under construction."

While one escalator will be installed on platform No. 1, the second will be in place at platform No. 10. Both will be inaugurated within a month, said Danapur public relations officer Sanjay Prasad.

Plans are also afoot to install lifts at Patna Junction. Prasad said: "The escalators and the lifts will be the new amenities for passengers at Patna Junction."

In the absence of escalators, passengers tend to jaywalk across the track to take a short-cut or avoid the overbridge, endangering their lives, Prasad said, adding: "Being the state capital, Patna is a busy station with thousands of passengers boarding and disembarking from more than a hundred passenger, express and mail trains. In the absence of proper infrastructure and other amenities, passengers, especially senior citizens, have to undergo a lot of inconvenience. Taking the stairs to reach the railway platforms and then getting down an equal number of stairs is very taxing for them."

"Keeping this in mind, the railways has decided to install escalators and lifts at Patna Junction," the PROsaid, and added: "Major works are in progress with regard to the escalator installation. This will cost around Rs 1.30 crore. By March-end, escalators will be ready."

All the formalities have been completed. The railways has completed its civil work regarding escalator installation and now the onus lies on the company installing the escalators, Prasad said.

On why platforms No. 1 and 10 were chosen for installing the escalators, Prasad said: "With long-distance trains departing from platform No. 1, the escalator will be useful for passengers, especially with heavy luggage."

"Lately, we had been trying to divert traffic almost up to 50 per cent to platform No. 10. Again, the circulating area at platform No. 10 has been developed further to accommodate more passengers and it was felt more apt to install an escalator there," he added.

With regard to lifts becoming operational, Prasad said plans are afoot to install two lifts at Patna Junction but it can be functional only in the next financial year as there has been some problem in site selection. Though it will be sorted out soon, he said.