Goyal gives awards for beautification of stations, Madhubani 2nd

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New Delhi : Union Minister for Railways & Coal Piyush Goyal on July 12, 2018, distributed awards to winning stations in Station Beautification competition at Rail Bhawan. This innovative competition was organized among Zonal Railways in December 2017. Balharshah & Chandrapur Railway Stations of Central Railway have been awarded the first prize while Madhubani station under East Central Railway (ECR), Hajipur, and Madurai station of Southern Railway were the co-winners of the second prize.

Gandhidham station of Western Railway, Kota station of West Central Railway & Secunderabad station of South Central Railway were joint winners of the third prize. Piyush Goyal felicitated the artists who participated in this initiative by giving them cash awards and appreciation certificates. Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain, Chairman, Railway Board, Ashwani Lohani, and other Senior Railway Board officials were also present on the occasion. Goyal also unveiled booklet containing photographs of all such stations which have been beautified under this endeavor, according to a PIB release.

Under the guidance Goyal, Indian Railways has launched an innovative initiative for the station beautification with wall art of paints and graffiti or local arts with participation of local artists, private groups and volunteers. More than 62 stations across Zonal railways have been beautified under this initiative by utilizing skills of local artists, mostly using local art form, painting style, local themes or contemporary arts. This initiative provided forum for expression of the emerging talents in the area and visibility of local art forms to the travellers.

An evaluation committee of senior officials of Ministry of Railways was constituted to judge the entries of the stations who participated in this initiative. The entries were evaluated on the basis of a number of criterion including depiction of local subjects, culture & themes, overall harmony of art with the station colours, type of art form used, quality of work done, according to a PIB release.

The award winning entries for the grant of awards given away on July 12 were selected on the basis of the recommendations of this committee which were approved by Chairman, Railway Board.

As a token of appreciation, the prize winning entries were awarded cash prize: 1^st Prize: Balharshah & Chandrapur Railway stations (Central Railway) – Rs 10 lakh,  2^nd Prize: Madhubani Railway station (East Central Railway) & Madurai Railway station (Southern Railway) – Rs 5 lakh, 3^rd Prize: Gandhidham Railway station (Western Railway), Kota Railway station (West Central Railway) & Secunderabad Railway station (South Central Railway) – Rs 3 lakh.

On this occasion, Goyal also launched the Bridge Management System (IR-BMS). This is a web-enabled IT Application for meaningful assimilation, analysis and dissemination of information related to various activities like Bridge Master Data, works Data, Inspection/Monitoring and Maintenance of the bridges of Indian Railways.