Chennai: In a bid to ease the foot traffic of rail passengers who rely on suburban trains to commute through the city, the Southern Railway will soon widen foot-over-bridges at the Chennai Egmore, Mambalam and Tambaram railway stations.
Plans are on to construct a new FOB at the Guindy railway station at cost of Rs 8 crore. The ground work has been started at Mambalam station.
It will be a great relief for commuters as these stations have extremely high foot traffic.
According to reports, nearly 10 lakh commuters use the MRTS and the suburban rail network per day.
On Thursday, Southern Railway General Manager R K Kulshrestha along with Divisional Railway Manager, Chennai, Naveen Gulati, Principal Chief Engineer, V D S Kaswan, Principal Chief Security Commissioner, Birendra Kumar, Additional Divisional Railway Manager, Chennai, Mukund inspected the FOBs.
At St Thomas Mount station, works involved in raising the platforms and other safety parameters were inspected. Back in July, five passengers lost their lives after being hit by a wall while travelling on footboard.
Ever since the accident took place, the railway authorities have conducted a series of measures to improve the safety of the passengers.
“There are also plans to built escalators at Mambalam, Guindy and Tambaram railway stations to ease commuter’s movement. It will cost around Rs 1 crore,” said a senior railway official.