Title - Railways seek additional land for terminal at Hadapsar station

PUNE: The fate of railway administration's plan to set up an additional terminal at the Hadapsar railway station is now in the hands of the state government. It has approached the state government seeking additional land required to develop a terminal and other facilities at the Hadapsar station.

The land will be utilized to develop approach roads to the station, a circulating area, including parking spaces, waiting lounge for passengers and other facilities.

The proposal to develop a terminal at Hadapsar station has been in discussion since 2012 when top officials in the Central Railway administration expressed the need to decentralize movement of trains from Pune station. The officials had stated that decentralizing of rail traffic was necessary to reduce burden at the Pune station, which has reached a critical level. Officials had instructed the Pune railway division to undertake a study at the Hadapsar station.

Commenting on the latest developments regarding the proposal, divisional railway manager Vishal Agarwal said, "There is a need for more space to develop a terminal at Hadapsar. The proposal has been sent to the state government. Once we get their response, we will act accordingly. We are pursuing the matter with the government."

Agarwal said the station will require facilities like parking space, building and circulating area. He said the administration was working on various aspects and was also in touch with the government to take the proposal ahead.

The Pune station operates more than 150 trains everyday, including express, mail and passenger trains, to various destinations in north and south directions. Railway officials said the train traffic was increasing every year and it would be difficult to manage running of trains within the limited resources if new trains are introduced every year. There is little scope of developing additional platforms at the station which already has six platforms.

The officials said the administration has conducted various technical surveys at the Hadapsar station and observed the existing space at the station was not enough to develop a terminal. The survey covered various aspects like provisions of approach roads, availability of parking space, alignment of rail tracks, signaling system, vacant areas, passenger capacity of the station and the schedule of trains.

Amit Deshpande, a commuter said, "In Mumbai, long distance trains are being operated from Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Dadar and Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus. A similar model can be replicated in Pune as the traffic of long distance and suburban operations is rising."