By Bizodisha Bureau, September 19, 2019: The Railway Station, here will finally get a facelift with the Indian Railways and the Odisha government signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for re-development of Bhubaneswar Railway Station on Thursday.

Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) on behalf of the state government and East Coast Railway (ECoR) from the side of Railways inked the MoU in New Delhi in the presence of Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Union railway minister Piyush Goyal were on videoconference.

The MoU signed after prolonged delay and multiple cancellations of dates seems to develop the area at Bhubaneswar railway station as Railway Station Multimodal Hub (RSMH) project. BDA will act as the nodal agency for planning, designing and executing the project.

The project includes a terminal building for the railway station, public car park, dedicated pickup and drop off lanes for taxi, auto rickshaws and other vehicles, city bus terminal. It will also have theatre plaza, art plaza, children’s plaza and food courts and a public utility space having a pedestrian environment and cycling tracks.

The new station building and the two new railway lines with platforms will be developed in an integrated manner over the land belonging to railways and state government. The proposed building will have ground with five floors with 1.74 lakh square feet area earmarked for Railways, said an ECoR statement.

“The multi modal hub will be developed by the state government at a cost of Rs 840 crore out of its own resources and the public infrastructure part will be completed in 30 months,” said chief minister Naveen Patnaik.

A three-tier monitoring mechanism will be adopted by the state government for close supervision and monitoring of the project. Design of the multimodal hub is a blend of contemporary designs and traditional Kalingan style of architecture. Besides, the project will have an iconic city square with a centrally located high rise tower providing mixed use of development such as commercial, retail, hotel, service apartments, officials said.