Indian Railways revises station categories to ensure better amenities to commuters

Indian Railways has revised the categories of various stations across the country in a move to offer better amenities and passenger services. The step was taken after Railways and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal directed the concerned authorities to re-categorise stations by taking into account “passenger footfall, earnings, and strategic importance” to offer focussed and effective services.

The Ministry of Railways in a statement said that the decision was taken to make things more rational and practical. “The criteria for categorisation of stations have now been revised to include footfalls at the station. The stations have been clubbed into three groups — non-suburban (NS), suburban (S), and halt (H),” the statement said. These categorises have been further sub-categorised into NSG1-6, SG1-3, and HG1-3, based on passenger footfall and earnings.
Earlier, the main criterion for classifying the categories was passenger earnings, which was purely earned through platform tickets. Therefore, based on it, all the stations were categorised as A1, A, B, C, D, E and F. “As per the new criteria, the number of footfalls has also been given equal weightage and is taken into account as criteria for categorisation of stations.”

“Therefore, many stations like Kalyan, Panvel, Tambaram, Thane have qualified into the higher category and become eligible for the higher level of passenger amenities,” said the ministry.

The new categorisation, thus, gives equal weightage to the number of passenger footfalls, resulting in many stations qualifying for higher categories.

As per the new structure, 5,976 are non-suburban railway stations, 484 suburban railway stations, and 2,153 halts. This categorisation, as per the ministry, will stay valid for the period 2017-18 to 2022-23.