Tirupati Railway Station to get facelift

Tirupati Railway Station to get facelift

Tirupati (TPTY): The Tirupati railway station is all set to get a facelift, if the ongoing efforts to acquire land by the railway authorities are any indication.

Even though the authorities have focused their attention in taking up the expansion works of the platforms for the time being, they are also concentrating on the ways to meet the future requirements of the temple town, in view of the increase in inflows of devotees with every passing year.

As part of the efforts, the railway authorities have intensified lobbying with the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) for alienation of its property located on the southern side of the railway station.

The TTD management, in principle, is not averse to the proposal, but the fact that it has already decided to construct a multi-storied complex- Hari Nivasam– at the site is what reportedly holding it back.

While the railway authorities expect the property whose market value runs into tens of crores of rupees to be provided to them on lease, the TTD sources opine that the request could not be considered as the TTD board is not authorised to sanction a lease for more than five years more so when the railway authorities intend to come up with permanent structures like construction of platforms.

Despite all the odds, the railway authorities, it is learnt, have renewed their request for alienation of additional land to meet the expansion programme.

It is against this back drop that the officials of both the Railways and the TTD are seriously toying with the idea of holding a joint inspection of the site by the end of this week and arrive at a consensus with regard to the exact land requirement of the project and the possibilities of its alienation.

Acquisition of the land belonging to TTD emerges a bottleneck owing to alienation issues

TTD, Railway authorities plan joint inspection of the site to explore the possibilities