The Habibganj Railway Station Redevelopment work has been given a fresh deadline of March 2021, which is a year later than the previous deadline. Earlier, the deadline for the facelift was set as March 31, 2020.
DRM Bhopal, Uday Borwanker, inspected the preparations at the station, including the circulating area, covered over platforms, lighting on station, surfacing of platforms and progress of work being done in concourse area. He reviewed and discussed these with the concerned authorities. Abu Asif, the project manager of Bansal Pathways, the company that is taking care of the redevelopment work, said, “Out of the total 40 girders required for the new air concourse, 38 are already in place. The remaining two will also be in place soon. With this, the new works above tracks that require traffic and OHE block will also be complete.”
Asif added that the flooring work for all platforms towards Itarsi has been completed. “Flooring work at platform 3 and 5 is left towards Bhopal end, and shall be completed after installation of travelators at Bhopal end. Work of flooring below concourse has started. Over all 90% flooring work has been done,” he said.
The escalators at the East building and all platforms at Itarsi end have been installed. “Over-all 95% structural work has been completed. New west building’s insulated sheeting work shall be completed by October end,” said Asif.
Habibganj is the first railway station in the entire country to be redeveloped through public-private partnership mode under the station redevelopment programme of Indian Railways. The revamp of Habibganj into a world-class station was launched in July 2016, at an estimated cost of Rs 450 crore. However, the work started only in January 2017 with an ambitious deadline to complete it in three years. The project is divided into two parts: Rs 100 crore was earmarked for facelift of the station while the remaining Rs350 crore was for commercial facilities.