BENGALURU: The Sir M Visvesvaraya railway terminal at Baiyappanahalli will be inaugurated soon, said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Railway Board, Suneet Sharma. Briefing the media along with top railway officials at the Rail Wheel Factory at Yelahanka on Sunday, Sharma said, “We have planned for the inauguration and will get some time from the Prime Minister. It will be inaugurated very soon.”
Asked if it could happen this month, he said, “It looks very difficult.” He was speaking after inspecting the new terminal. Sharma lauded the facilities at the station and billed it as having the best infrastructure in Indian Railways. “It is in tune with the development of Bengaluru as one of the hubs in the country. It will provide the much needed respite to Bengaluru as the other two terminals (KSR and Yeshwantpur) sometimes feel congested,” he said.
Asked about the maintenance part, Bengaluru Divisional Railway Manager A K Verma said, “The contract for mechanised cleaning has already been finalised.” General Manager, South Western Railway, A K Singh said, “We will have similar cleaning facilities like the Metro.”
To a query on the trains that will shift to the new terminal, Verma said, “We have already identified 32 pairs of trains. After full train services are reintroduced, they will start one by one.” “Pre-Covid, we used to run 1,702 trains per day including Mail and Express services.
Today, we are running 1,350 of those trains. We are running 10 per cent of Passenger trains. They are
unreserved ones and the protocol has to be very strict,” Sharma said. He did not respond to a query on the loss suffered by the Railways due to disruption of its services. “As far as financials are concerned, we are generally doing very well and meeting all our liabilities,” he said.