Clockwise from top left: Old 1873 Building, the Kachcha Platform, The Plaque, Completed Building, Work in Progress
(Story of the First Ever Railway Station Redeveloped on Indian Railways)
“But Swami Ji, I have neither the sanction nor the funds for
this work. How can I help you?” I said.
The year was 2016. Swami Sahanand Ji of the Ram Krishna
Mission Ashram of Coimbatore was sitting across my table in my office. I was
the Divisional Railway Manager of Salem Division in Tamil Nadu, Southern
Railway. Swami Ji wanted me to rebuild the railway station, actually a halt
station, of Periyanaickenpalayam, a small Panchayat Town, North of Coimbatore.
Its population is just about twenty-five thousand, but it is home to a large
Math of the Ram Krishna Mission, second only to the Belur Math. It also has a
large educational campus that has over ten thousand students from primary to
doctoral levels. Thousands of students commute daily to the Mission and use the
halt station of Periyanaickenpalayam. A halt station is a bare-bones station,
where they don’t have signals or station staff. Trains that halt there stop for
a couple of minutes in either direction.
Halt stations do not have any priority for the Railways
towards improvement or investment. The existing station building was built in
the year 1873 and was dilapidated beyond any possibility of repair. But Swami
Ji had faith that if someone could do it, it was the DRM of Salem. He said, “If
you can’t do it, nobody else will.”
I said, “Swami Ji, if you can get a sponsor who would fund
it out of CSR funds, I promise to cut the bureaucratic red tape for you.” I
told him it would cost about two crore rupees. Swami was sceptical about
raising such a large amount of money but said he would try his best, blessed
me, and left.
Not a fortnight had passed, and Swami Ji came to me with
officials of Laxmi Machine Works, a major machine tool builder of the country.
They had their factory and offices in the same Coimbatore neighbourhood as the
Math and their workers too would be benefitted by a more hospitable station. I
assured them that if they committed the funds required for the station building
redevelopment, I would remove all the regulatory hurdles and approve the plans
at my level. Then, I asked them to give me detailed drawings for the proposed
station building and its surroundings. During my visit to LMW, I was surprised
to find their meticulously prepared design of the building, landscaping in the
front and detailed breakup of costs. When I saw their enthusiasm, I asked them
if they could take up the construction and landscaping themselves. I was
worried that the Railways system would be mired in procedures and eventually
not build what the LMW and the Math had envisioned. No approvals were taken
from the Southern Railway Head Quarters or the Railway Board.
So, a plaque was unveiled on the 2nd of April, 2016
commemorating the beginning of the station redevelopment work. It duly
acknowledged the efforts of the company. Soon thereafter my term as DRM came to
an end. But the station building was constructed exactly the way we had
imagined. Thus was rebuilt the first railway station of the country, many years
before the mission of station redevelopment was launched. And, it was done at
no cost to the Railways and without a penny being handled by the Railway’s establishment.
---ooo---
