Bhubaneswar, April 3: Residents will be able to move around the city on local trains as authorities have decided to have a suburban railway system here to strengthen the public transport system.

The proposed suburban railway system will connect the city's local stations. At present, there are five local railway stations in the city - Mancheswar, Lingaraj Temple Road, Vani Vihar, Sarkantara and Patia. All these are located within 12km from Bhubaneswar railway station.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said the plan was expected to connect areas such as Old Town, where space constraints prevented the rapid bus transit system from being implemented.

"The Centre has asked us to come up with a report to implement the suburban railway system in the city," said a senior official of the housing and urban development department that has initiated the process with an eye on transit-oriented solutions in the city.

The officials will prepare the detailed projecy report after which the cost will be decided. At present, there are no deadlines or operational time fixed for the project.

The East Coast Railway and the state government are also in the process of constructing another new station near Barang on the city outskirts.

"We are in talks with railway officials and other stakeholders, including the transport department and officials of Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited, for the project. We will conduct a feasibility survey and come up with the detailed project report that would be submitted to the Union government for funding by the end of April," the official said.

Sources said that after the feasibility survey and submission of the project report to the Centre, a special purpose vehicle would be formed to execute the project. The implementation of the suburban railway system here would be cost effective since it would be integrated with the city's existing railway network, the official said.

At present, only Chennai, Lucknow, Calcutta, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad have suburban railway networks. The country's largest suburban railway in Chennai has six tracks and covers about 896km of the city.

But, the city administration needs to construct more railway tracks and spend on developing infrastructure such as railway signals to implement the system here. "Earlier, we had a plan to introduce the mono-railway system in the twin cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. Later, the plan was dropped because of the absence of infrastructure and higher project cost," said the mayor.

Jena said Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited, the state capital's special purpose vehicle to execute the smart city projects here, would help the government implement the suburban railway system.

"The city's public transport is not in a good condition. There are not enough city buses and autorickshaws. Besides, the private cab operators often have an upper hand over the commuters. There is a need to develop and strengthen the public transport. The introduction of local trains would be a welcome move," said Jatni resident Shyamli Mohanty.

At present, there are no local trains running in the city. Besides, Bhubaneswar Puri Transport Services Limited is operating around 100 intra-city buses on only 10 city routes.

It does not cover the entire city and also provides an opportunity to the operators of private vehicle monopoly over the business. However, in the near future, the city administration is planning to increase the number of city buses to about 600 under the smart city project.