The latest piece of news that has come out now is soon as many as 6 railway stations in places like Tambaram, Tiruvallur, Avadi, Perumbur, Mambalam, Chengalpattu plus two more stations in places like Katpadi and Arakkonam in the district of Vellore would get many facilities. The main reason for this is the railways have given these stations a higher grade.
In the month of December 2017, the railway ministry wanted to re-categorise the railway stations and many factors like account of revenue, footfalls and other strategic importance were considered. The main objective was to improve passenger services plus amenities at the stations. It must be noted that these stations were divided into 3 categories such as non-suburban NS, suburban S and halt H with grades of 1 to 6, 1 to 3 and 1 to 3 respectively.
Chennai Central, Egmore and Tambaram have topped the revised station list with NSG 1. Under NSG 2 category stations like Tiruvallur plus others like Avadi, Mambalam, Chengalpattu, Katpadi and Arakkonam have been brought. Stations like Perambur and Sullurpetta have been given grades as NSG 3 and NSG 5 respectively.
It is worthy to note that amenities such as waiting halls, platform shelters plus lifts, escalators, digital chart display etc are very important and these facilities would be provided in the revised category stations. Other superb amenities like extra foot over bridges, separate path for trolley and wheelchair movement and higher level platforms would also be available.
Based on the annual revenue generated through passengers the stations are categorised as A1, A, B C, D, E and non-suburban stations were categorised as B, D, E, F on the basis of their generation of revenue. Under C comes all sub-urban stations in Chennai and these stations are not eligible for additional passenger services.
The Tambaram railway station has been in the A category till now and would soon be ranked in the top and on par with other major railway stations like Chennai Central and Egmore.
According to a senior official belonging to railways it is clear that revised categorisation would ensure that sub-urban trains with higher footfalls would develop at a faster rate and would have better passenger services.