Puri railway station. Picture by Sarat Patra

Cuttack, Nov. 2: The apparent roadblock to the proposed world-class station in Puri in the form of entrenched encroachments such as slums has come under judicial scrutiny. Orissa High Court has registered a PIL on delay in implementation of the Railway Board’s plan to upgrade the existing station in Puri into a station of international standards.

The move to elevate the station to global standards is a part of the railways’ ambitious plan to convert 50 stations across India to world-class levels.

The PIL assumes significance as the biggest constraint to the development of the station in Puri, according to Railway officials, is the encroachments dotting the circulating area in its close vicinity. In July, the East Coast Railways (ECoR) had issued a statement that encroachments were coming in the way of developing Puri as a world-class station. The ECoR plans to make a second entry to Puri station via Ashram Chhak leading to Gundicha temple. The move would not be possible if illegal encroachments were not lifted, the statement said.

Arati Das, a resident of Puri had alleged in a letter petition that slums such as Jhadeswar Basti and Maheswar Basti had come up on the railways’ land. Though funds had been allocated in the railway budget since 2009-10 for developing a world-class station in Puri keeping in view of its religious and tourism importance, no action has followed.

Treating the letter petition as a PIL, the high court issued notices to the general manager of the ECoR and divisional railway manager of Khurda division. While issuing the notices seeking clarification on the development of Puri railway station, the two-judge bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra on Tuesday also appointed additional government advocate Bikram Kishore Nayak as amicus curiae in the case.

According to the petition, the railway station in Puri was constructed in 1898 with a single track. The number of regular trains to the temple town had increased to 39 pairs, along with 100 to 150 special trains during rath yatra and other festivals. Thus, the load on the single track had grown immensely and is now fraught with risks. Lord Jagannath’s Nabakalebar Yatra is scheduled to be observed in 2015. It would attract more than 20 lakh people, the petitioner said, while seeking the high court’s intervention for development of the station before that.

Though the railways have improved services at the station by adding new passenger services every year, there is need for more number of retiring rooms and dormitories, better executive lounges for international tourists, improved and decongested circulating area, better parking space, more number of platforms, modern pay and use toilets, better catering joints and tourist bureaus.