Renovated Kumbakonam railway station may be ready by December 2027

Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription

Work in progress at the Kumbakonam railway station, which is being given a complete makeover. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Southern Railway has undertaken a major redevelopment of Kumbakonam railway station to give it a complete makeover. The project is planned to be completed by December 2027.

The task of executing the ₹99.84-crore project has been entrusted to the Southern Railway Construction Organisation. Kumbakonam is the second station after Puducherry in Tiruchi Railway Division where a multi-crore station redevelopment project has been taken up.

A host of passenger amenities and other works, including increasing the existing platform length, form part of the project at Kumbakonam which is one of the top revenue generating stations in Tiruchi Railway Division.

Contracts have been awarded. As part of the project, Kumbakonam will have a new station building for which pile foundation work was in progress, a senior railway official said. The new station building will be constructed with a 12-metre air concourse. It will have an additional 6-metre wide pedestrian overbridge for seamless movement of passengers.

The official said platform extension work was in progress along with overhead equipment (OHE) modification at the station. Yard remodelling would be carried out for increasing the length of the existing platforms to accommodate express trains in all platforms in future.

The station will have segregated departure and arrival areas for better regulation and seamless movement of passengers besides provision of escalators, retiring rooms, waiting halls, air-conditioned lounges, parking lot, food plaza, and commercial stalls under the redevelopment plan.

Plans were afoot to develop the second entry of Kumbakonam station with additional amenities, including ticket counters and waiting halls. Sanction has been accorded to shift the goods shed at Kumbakonam to Tirunageswaram to ease traffic congestion for which the work would commence. The station would have six platforms from the present four platforms.

The official said the entire project was expected to be completed by December 2027 taking into consideration the Mahamaham festival which is scheduled to be held in this temple town from February 29 to March 9, 2028.

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.