DRMs promoting Rani Kamalapati station in Bhopal

Almost all DRMs in the southern railway zone had posted two dozen tweets each on their official Twitter handles, glorifying the erstwhile Habibganj station, which has been renamed as Rani Kamalapati station. 

The station in Bhopal is believed to be the first-ever station developed as a part of the station development project of the Railway Ministry under the monetization project.

Almost all DRMs have tagged the official handle of the Railway Ministry and the zonal general manager in their similar tweets posted with the same photographs of the station. 

Railway sources with knowledge of the publicity overdrive disclosed that it was not a matter of choice. Every DRM and senior officials had to tweet Rani Kamalapati station development project as a success story.

“Though there is no official instruction to compulsorily engage in such PR drive, the officers knew they would be monitored. Even if one officer missed out, it would be glaring. So, almost all officers invariably ended up promoting the story on social media,” said a highly placed railway source on condition of anonymity.

DREU vice president R Elangovan said, “First, they had planned to promote (develop) 400 stations. Then they reduced it to 50 stations. Again they finalised 27 stations. The lone Rani Kamalapati station in Bhopal is the only one they could manage to develop. There are no takers for the rest. They had even dissolved the Indian Railway Station Development Corporation, a special purposed vehicle floated for the purpose. Now, they are asking zonal railways to promote stations themselves. They are trying to project a failure as a success story. Hence, the publicity blitz.”