Gopuram, Pandya symbols, bull to add to Madurai junction’s sheen

MADURAI: Symbols of the Pandya dynasty, aspects of the famous Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple and a sculpture of a bull representing jallikattu sport will be part of the redeveloped Madurai railway station, Southern Railway sources said. Construction work in the station will be completed by November 2025 and it will promote the city’s culture and heritage, it said.

The Madurai Junction is one of the 1,318 stations short-listed for redevelopment under the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme (ABBS). “The entrance of the station will resemble the ‘Gopuram (gateway tower)’ of the Meenakshi temple which has great historical, architectural and religious significance. Its interiors will be decorated with paintings of fishes (emblem of the Pandya dynasty) and other heritage symbols,” Deputy Chief Engineer, Madurai Division, R Nand Gopal, said.

He added that as jallikattu is a traditional and important sporting event in Madurai, the station will have a statue of a bull at the entrance hall.

The east terminal building will have three floors. Offices and passenger amenities in the ground floor, railway offices on the mezzanine floor, an air-concourse on the first floor and retiring rooms and commercial spaces on the second floor.

Gopal said that the station, at present, handles 96 trains a day and registers an average daily passenger footfall of 51,296. “We studied the increase in passenger footfall of the last 10 years and realised that the annual growth is between one to two per cent. Going by that calculation, 40 years from now the footfall will be double at about 1 lakh. We are creating amenities keeping this in mind,” he said. Other facilities include three multi-level parking, multi-modal connectivity such as subways to connect the Periyar bus station, skywalks with escalators and lifts and foot over bridges.