Ghaziabad: A foot overbridge (FOB) at Ghaziabad railway station, which has been in the works for several months now, may finally see completion.
Railway officials claim the FOB will be completed by September, and that they have sought three days (from Monday) from the Railways to place the girder over the track, which requires trains on this section to be diverted.
The delay in construction has been due to reasons ranging from Covid-induced lockdown to difficulty in getting time slots to carry out construction work, officials said.
An official from Railways said, “The Ghaziabad railway station has six platforms and two FOBs.
One FOB was constructed during the British era and is still functional.
Over the years, it has become a key station in reducing the rush at the New Delhi railway station.” This has, however, also resulted in rush at the Ghaziabad railway station from where over 150 trains pass, and many of them stop here.
“On regular days, the station sees a footfall of over 400 passengers.
So, the need was felt to construct FOBs to cater to passenger influx.
While two of recently built FOBs are operational, a third one is expected to start functioning by September,” the official added.
The work on the new FOB began last year but is yet to be completed.
“The Covid-induced lockdown affected the work, and it caused the delay.
However, over the past few months, there has been a lot of progress and now we have requested the headquarters to give us a time slot to place the girder over the tracks,” the official said, adding that it would require diverting trains for about six hours.
“Starting from Monday, we have requested the headquarters to give us a three-day window to complete the remaining work.
We are still waiting for confirmation,” the official added.
The new FOB is being constructed at a cost of Rs 5 crore and it will be 150m in length and about 6m in width.
It will also have a ramp to facilitate movement of people with disabilities.