At least 55 stations under South Western Railway (SWR) are set to get enhanced passenger amenities in the coming days after the Railways reclassified stations on the basis of passenger revenue and footfall.

Hitherto, stations were classified as A1, A, B and so on, solely on the basis of passenger earnings irrespective of footfall. The reclassification was done following Railway Minister Piyush Goyal’s instructions to consider revenue, passenger footfall and strategic importance while categorising stations and providing amenities.

The stations will now be classified as Non-suburban (NS), Suburban (S) and Halt (H). KSR Bengaluru City, which was categorised as A1 earlier (more than ₹60 crore revenue), continues to be in the top slot as NSG1 with over ₹600 crore passenger revenue and handling 25 million passengers in 2016-17. Yeshwantpur, which too was A1, is categorised as NSG2 (₹368 crore) along with Mysuru (₹107 crore), which was in A category earlier. While Yeshwantpur handled about nine million passengers, Mysuru handled 10.7 million in 2016-17.

In all, SWR had two stations under A1 category (₹60 crore or more earnings); 15 under A (revenue between ₹8 crore and ₹ 60 crore); 17 under B (₹ 4 crore to ₹8 crore); 47 under D (₹60 lakh to ₹4 crore); 188 under E (less than ₹ 60 lakh); and 98 halt stations under F category.

Now, 15 stations — including Mysuru, Bangarpet, Mandya, Nanjangud Town, Chamarajanagar, Channapatna, Kuppam, Malur, Ramanagaram, Whitefield, Tyakal, Harihar, Subrahmanya Road, Sagarajambagaru, and Srirangapatna — have been upgraded to the next level. Besides this, 40 halt stations have been upgraded and will have enhanced passenger amenities, a release from SWR said.

The enhanced amenities include elevators, escalators, high-level platforms, foot overbridges, additional booking facilities, train coach indication boards, waiting halls, seating arrangements, platform shelters, and toilets.