Anand Vihar Terminal

Anand Vihar Railway Terminal (Stn Code- ANVT) is a railway station which falls under the administrative control of the Northern Zone of the Indian Railways. It is located in the Anand Vihar locality of Delhi.

This important terminal of the Northern Railway was inaugurated by the Union Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee on 19th Dec 2009 in the presence of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. This terminal has a complete area of forty two acres and is the largest railway station which caters for the trains departing to the eastern region.

History

The commuters of Delhi city are dependent on the railway for their daily transportation. The trains to different parts of the country originate from three important stations of the national capital, namely Hazrat Nizamuddin, Old Delhi and New Delhi Railway Stations. With the increasing passenger movements in these stations and steady rise in people reaching Delhi these stations have become congested. Being the gateway to the Northern states like Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, there is enormous amount of people using these stations. The stations had reached such a stage where in the basic amenities could not be provided to the commuters.  This has resulted in construction of a new railway terminal with all the modern amenities to cater for the requirements of east bound trains. The trains departing for the eastern states passing via Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and the eastern state had to venture through the bridge over River Yamuna as all the three major stations in Delhi were located on the other side of the river. This was the reason why Anand Vihar emerged as the choice for constructing a mega terminal which could minimise the congestion on the railway bridge. It was in the year 2003 the project for construction of Anand Vihar Terminal got approval under the Railway Minister Nitish Kumar.  In the same year in December month the tenders were floated and the foundation stone for the work commencement was laid down by Nitish Kumar on 25th Jan 2004.

Facilities

The station has full fledged facilities like waiting Halls, retiring rooms, cloak room, booking office, toilets, parcel office, eateries, stalls, separate arrival and departure areas and parking areas. The station is also equipped with modern facilities like Railway touch screen kiosk, ATMs of popular banks, food courts, foreign exchange counters and computerised railway ticket counter. Dormitories and upper class retiring rooms are available at the station complex. Parcel booking facility and transportation is simplified with the availability of 6 lifts and two escalators. There is also a special sub way for physically handicapped people. This terminal also has the distinction of being the only station where the parcel loading and unloading is carried out on the station yard with an intention to keep platforms clean.

Station

This new terminal was constructed with a prime motto to minimise the crowd at the three major railway stations of Delhi, the Hazrat Nizamuddin, New Delhi and Old Delhi. The idea behind the construction of this new terminal is taken from the popular Vashi terminal at Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra. The aim of the new terminal brought in quick results with the traffic on the roads and rail reducing to a large extent. This terminal helped in sharing the load of more than 1 million commuters arriving in Delhi from various parts of the country and within Delhi. The terminal has been planned in a special manner and is integrated to the Vivekanand Bus Terminal (Anand Vihar Interstate Bus Terminal). Further, the Anand Vihar Metro station is close by making it a popular transport hub. This type of set up gives easy access to the commuters and does not permit any accumulation of overcrowding. The government also plans to widen the rail over bridge at Anand Vihar to cater for the more traffic inflow.

List of Trains