Out of 23 main railway stations of the country, Udaipur becomes the first one in Rajasthan to undergo a facelift in the near future. Mall, shopping complex and hotel will be erected on the 42000 sq.metre property of the city station. The task will be taken care of by private builders. The project will be green signalled by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on 8^th Feb via video conferencing.

Railway management has marked 5 places for the facelift procedure within the periphery of the city station which will be allotted to the private builders for commercial development on PPP (public-private partnership) mode.

Model Development

There will be separate huge gates for departure and arrival. Platform flooring will be either marble or tiles. Vendor stalls will be given a different look. The entire vendor lorries, refreshment room will be redone with modern amenities. The front office will have a similar look as any hotel. Fast food restaurant, cafeteria and pharmacy will be developed. The station building will have an iconic appearance. For parcel booking and loading, there will a separate wing.

Negative aspect- Security ignored

The negative aspect here is that safety of passengers has been overlooked. There is no GRP station at the beginning point and the destination point overlooking which is a major lapse. In case of any mishap, passengers need to go to Rana Pratap Railway station for filing reports. It has been pointed out that the tourists feel forced to return without their losses take care of as filing a report is a tedious task.

Positive aspect

A positive aspect is that after the facelift which will take almost a year to complete, Udaipur station will have the comfort of high speed trains like Shatabdi and Rajdhani.