Indian Railways invited bids for the establishment and maintenance of a ”Rail Arcade” at the Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna (KSR) railway station of Bengaluru and the Chandigarh railway station for a period of nine years. The aim of the initiative is to offer world-class passenger-centric amenities and enhance the travel experience, according to a statement shared by the national transporter’s statutory body Indian Railways Station Development Corporation (IRSDC).

The rail arcade to be built at the stations is expected to be a mini-city centre offering food and beverage, entertainment, leisure, as well as retail facilities for passengers. This is a part of the railway statutory body’s overall mandate to undertake the complete facility management of five railway stations across the national transporter’s network – including Bengaluru, Pune, Anand Vihar, Chandigarh, and Secunderabad.

”It will enable passengers to utilize their mundane waiting time and turn it into leisure hours, and they will look forward to visiting these stations. As an integrated facility, Rail Arcade will fuel commercial activities and will be a formidable step in transforming railway stations into a RAILOPOLIS- an integrated mini smart city to ‘Work, Play and Ride’,” said Mr S.K. Lohia, Managing Director, and CEO, IRSDC.

At the upcoming Rail Arcade, some of the proposed facilities include Food & Beverage (F&B), gifts stores, books and magazines, handloom and artifacts, consumer goods kiosks, including pharmaceutical stores.

Comments The concessionaire will be responsible to take over the identified space and undertake the remodeling of the entire area for the development of commercial, leisure, and entertainment space at the railway stations, according to IRSDC.

The Southern Railway on Thursday announced further relaxations of restrictions for travelling public in the suburban trains, with immediate effect.

All types of tickets will be issued to all category of travelling public including students, an official release said.

“The general male category that was earlier restricted to travel during peak hours (7 am to 9.30 am and 4.30 pm to 7 pm) is now permitted to travel if they produce a two dose covid vaccination certificate along with any ID card to prove their identity at the time of purchasing tickets. They will be issued with all tickets (single/return), including season tickets,” it said.

Moreover, for male passengers, excluding students, without authorisation letter/ID card from their workplace and who do not produce the two doses vaccination certificate, the restriction to travel during peak hours will continue.

During non-peak hours they will be issued single journey tickets only, the release added.

Freight loading for Indian Railways during August 2021 touched 110.55 million tonnes, which was 16.8 per cent higher than that of the corresponding last year, when it had reached 94.5 million tonnes.

The railway ministry also earned ₹ 10,866 crore from freight loading during the month, which was 20 per cent more than ₹ 9,043 crore of August 2020.

Official sources said that Indian Railways managed record freight loading during August 2021 despite difficulties being faced due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

The important commodities transported during August 2021 included 47.94 million tonnes of coal, 13.53 million tonnes of iron ore, 5.77 million tonnes of pig iron and finished steel, 6.88 million tonnes of food grains, 4.16 million tonnes of fertilisers, 3.60 million tonnes of mineral oil, 6.3 million tonnes of cement (excluding clinker) and 4.51 million tonnes of clinker.