SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir will see four of its railway stations redeveloped under the Centre’s Amrit Bharat Station Scheme, Parliament was told on Wednesday, with works at Budgam and Jammu Tawi already reporting substantial on-ground progress. The master plans for the scheme envisage improved passenger amenities, better access, and commercial facilities aimed at turning stations into city-centres, but officials cautioned that statutory clearances and brownfield complexities make firm completion dates hard to state.
The Ministry of Railways told the Lok Sabha that 1,337 stations nationwide have been identified for redevelopment and that four stations in Jammu and Kashmir are on the list: Budgam, Jammu Tawi, Martyr Captain Tushar Mahajan and Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra. At Budgam, work to improve the circulating area, parking and approach roads has been completed, while upgrades to the porch, platform surfacing and shelters, waiting rooms, toilets, booking office, executive lounge, retiring rooms, lifts and a 12-metre foot over bridge have been taken up. At Jammu Tawi, the station building for a second entry, a Government Railway Police building and a 12-metre foot over bridge at the Katra end have been finished; further work on platforms, a 72-metre air concourse and additional foot over bridges is in hand. Similar improvement works have been completed or initiated at the other named stations.
The scheme’s master-planning covers a broad set of interventions: improving access and circulation, multimodal integration and parking, platform surface and cover, lifts, escalators and ramps, waiting areas, toilets and drinking water booths, passenger information systems, and kiosks for local products under initiatives such as One Station One Product. Provisions for accessibility for persons with disabilities and features such as executive lounges and landscaping are also included in plans where warranted by passenger traffic. The ministry says these upgrades are intended to boost passenger handling capacity, commercial revenue and local employment, although it did not publish quantified projections for Jammu and Kashmir’s stations.
Nationwide, works at 160 stations have been completed so far and many more are at various stages of execution. The ministry has allocated Rs 12,118 crore under Plan Head 53 Customer Amenities for 2025–26 and reported an expenditure of Rs 7,253 crore up to October 2025; however, officials emphasised that funds and expenditure are recorded zone-wise rather than station-wise, which limits granular financial transparency for individual stations. The master-planning process itself is described as iterative, with optimisations and changes introduced as projects progress.
Despite visible progress at specific sites in Jammu and Kashmir, the ministry warned that station redevelopment is complex and vulnerable to delays. Projects routinely require multiple statutory clearances — from fire and heritage authorities to airport coordination for some works — and face practical brownfield constraints such as shifting water and sewer lines, optical fibre and power cables, and ensuring train operations continue without jeopardising passenger movement. These constraints, the ministry said, make it impossible at this stage to commit to fixed completion timelines for many stations.
The Amrit Bharat list for neighbouring states illustrates the scale of the programme: Jharkhand accounts for 57 stations and Madhya Pradesh 80, including several identified within the Shahdol and Sidhi Lok Sabha constituencies. In Shahdol, stations such as Anuppur, Bijuri, Shahdol and Umaria have reported finished items ranging from platform raising to improved circulating areas, while in Sidhi works at Bargawan include completed platform shelters with further upgrades under way. The ministry frames these projects as components of broader urban and economic renewal around railheads.
For Jammu and Kashmir the upgrades carry strategic and economic significance. Jammu Tawi’s ongoing air concourse and extended platform works are likely to ease passenger flows at a busy junction linking the valley to the rest of the country, while improved facilities at Katra and Budgam can support pilgrimage and regional mobility if delivered on time. Yet the absence of station-level funding breakdowns and the open-ended nature of master plan optimisation mean local stakeholders will need regular public updates to track whether promised benefits — faster passenger movement, higher commercial rents and local jobs — materialise.
The government says it will prioritise higher category stations when allocating work, and that development will continue as funds and priorities permit. Until project timelines and station-wise budgets are made available, independent monitoring and district-level reporting will be essential to hold implementers to account and to ensure the ambitious aims of the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme translate into tangible gains for travellers and local economies in Jammu and Kashmir.
