2 years on, redevelopment work at Ludhiana railway station stuck in slow lane

Almost two years after the redevelopment began at the Ludhiana railway station, less than half of the work has been completed so far, according to officials aware of the matter.

A senior official from Firozpur division overseeing the work pegged the estimate of completed work at 44%. The redevelopment started in February 2023. The planned works include a six-storey building towards the main entry, a three-storey car park, a three-storey building over the civil lines, a hospital, a guest house and over 130 staff quarters.

So far, the structure for the car park, where the work is underway, and the new hospital building have been completed. The remaining work is underway, officials supervising the project said.

Railway construction deputy chief engineer Abhinav Garg attributed the slow pace of the work to heavy passenger inflow at the station, which is biggest in the state.

“This is a brown filed project. We had to relocate the officials and service sites to other locations to clear up space. Just that took us nearly a year. The construction, which was supposed to start by March 2023, could only commence in March last year,” said Garg.

The official pointed out that the railway station sees a daily footfall of around 50,000, further complicating the matter for them.

“We must do the construction work on platforms in shifts of a few hours to ensure that the traffic is not affected. It doesn’t allow smooth flow of work,” Garg added.

The deadline for completion of the redevelopment project is set for April 2026. Railway officials, however, expressed apprehensions about the timely completion of the works.

Garg said he was optimistic that if not April, the work will be completed by the end of next year at the latest.

“For this kind of project, it is hard to predict completion time accurately,” he added.