The Amrit Bharat Station Scheme covers 77 stations in Tamil Nadu, from Chennai Beach to Kanniyakumari. Most get a modest upgrade rather than a rebuild, and the railways will not commit to a finish date. Here is how the scheme picks and pays for stations, and what has actually changed in and around Chennai.
The numbers
Seventy-seven Tamil Nadu stations are in the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme, out of 1,337 nationally, the Railway Minister told the Lok Sabha on 18 December 2024. Works had been awarded and were under way at 71 of them. In the same answer the ministry said that, because the scheme is a long-term programme of master plans carried out in phases, no time frame could be given.
That caveat shapes everything about the scheme. A station’s inclusion means it has a master plan and a place in the queue. It does not mean a new building, and for most Chennai stations the money involved is in single-digit crores. The first finished example in the city, St. Thomas Mount, cost ₹11.05 crore.
How stations are chosen and paid for
The ministry describes the scheme as continuous development of stations through master plans implemented in phases, according to a Lok Sabha answer of 24 July 2024. The list of possible works is long: better approaches, waiting halls, toilets, lifts and escalators, free Wi-Fi, One Station One Product kiosks, facilities for disabled passengers and links to other transport. In the long term, the answer adds, stations are to become city centres that raise revenue.
The money comes from the railways’ customer amenities budget, Plan Head 53, which is allotted to railway zones rather than states. That is why no Tamil Nadu total for the scheme appears in the answers: a zone’s allocation can span more than one state.
Chennai division’s first fifteen
Southern Railway’s Chennai division named its first 15 stations in a press release of 11 March 2023. It put the cost at ₹5 crore to ₹10 crore per station, depending on each station’s importance, said consultancy contracts had been awarded for 14, and aimed to finish Phase 1 by the end of 2023-24.
| Chennai city and suburbs | Further out on the division |
|---|---|
| Chennai Beach | Arakkonam Jn |
| Park | Chengalpattu Jn |
| Perambur | Gummidipundi |
| Ambattur | Tiruvallur |
| Mambalam | Tiruttani |
| Guindy | Jolarpettai |
| St. Thomas Mount | Sullurupeta (Andhra Pradesh) |
| Guduvancheri |
Source: Southern Railway, Chennai Division, press release PUB/MAS/2023/03/05, 11 March 2023; grouping by location is ours
The planned works were the same short list at every station: lifts and escalators, a better second entry, toilets, waiting halls, a new façade, traffic circulation, signage, entrance porches, high-level platforms, platform covers and a 12-metre-wide central foot overbridge with ramps.
The Tamil Nadu list in the 2024 answer is longer. Its Chennai-area stations also include Avadi, Chennai Egmore, Chrompet, Tambaram and Tirusulam, which were not in the 2023 Phase 1 batch.
What a finished station looks like
St. Thomas Mount, which handles about 27,000 passengers a day, was among 103 Amrit stations the Prime Minister opened by video link on 22 May 2025, Southern Railway said in its release that day. The ₹11.05 crore went on two new booking offices with ticket machines and a reservation counter, reworked circulating areas with driveways and footpaths, modular toilets designed for all passengers, two- and four-wheeler parking, new roofs and lighting on platform shelters, resurfaced platforms 1A, 3, 4 and 5, a new entry arch, charging and water points, and electronic train information boards.
Cost of the completed St. Thomas Mount upgrade, above the ₹5 crore to ₹10 crore range the Chennai division gave for Phase 1 stations in March 2023.
That is a refurbishment, not a new station. The national government briefing before the May 2025 event picked out Kumbakonam, whose redevelopment would draw on Chola architecture, as Tamil Nadu’s showcase, but the overall pattern in the state is upgrades of this kind.
Egmore and the big rebuilds
A handful of large stations are getting full redevelopment instead. The December 2024 answer reported progress at three in Tamil Nadu. At Chennai Egmore, structural work on the parcel building was complete and work had begun on a multi-level car park and the terminal building on the Gandhi-Irwin Road side. At Rameswaram, the north-side terminal and a substation were finished; at Madurai, an east-side two-wheeler park and substation. None of these came with a cost, a percentage of progress or a completion date. Chennai Central does not feature in the answer at all.
The bigger rail picture in Tamil Nadu
The same answer set station work against the state’s wider rail spending. Railway infrastructure and safety outlay in Tamil Nadu rose from an average ₹879 crore a year in 2009-14 to ₹6,362 crore in 2024-25. Twenty-two new line and doubling projects covering 2,587 km were under way at a cost of ₹33,467 crore, with ₹7,153 crore spent to March 2024 and 665 km commissioned.
Land is the bottleneck the ministry named. The projects need 3,389 hectares in Tamil Nadu, of which 866 hectares, or 26 per cent, had been acquired, leaving 2,523 hectares pending. Station upgrades mostly sit on railway land, so they face less of that problem.
It’s often said a station in the Amrit Bharat scheme is being rebuilt from the ground up.
The record shows Most Chennai division stations were budgeted at ₹5 crore to ₹10 crore for amenities such as toilets, lifts, platform covers and booking offices. Full redevelopments, such as Egmore, are a small set, and the ministry gives no completion date even for those.
What this means for you
- At upgraded suburban stations, expect new booking offices, toilets and lifts rather than new buildings; St. Thomas Mount shows the template.
- Egmore passengers should expect construction around the Gandhi-Irwin Road side, where the new terminal and car park are being built.
- Station complaints about lifts, toilets or signage can go through Rail Madad; the scheme does not change how complaints are handled.
- There is no official completion date for any Tamil Nadu station, so treat timelines in non-official reports with caution.
What to watch
Pending
Opening of further Chennai division Phase 1 stations, including Chennai Beach, Park, Perambur and Guindy.
Pending
Completion of the Chennai Egmore terminal building and multi-level car park, for which no date has been given.
Checked against official sources on 23 October 2026. Figures and rules change; confirm on the linked official pages before relying on them.
Sources
- Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 333, 24 July 2024, Ministry of Railways (Amrit Bharat Station Scheme)
- Lok Sabha Starred Question 334, 18 December 2024, Ministry of Railways
- 15 railway stations selected under Amrit Bharat Station Scheme in Chennai Division, Southern Railway, 11 March 2023
- Inauguration of St. Thomas Mount Amrit station, Southern Railway, Chennai Division, 22 May 2025
- Amrit Bharat stations backgrounder, PIB, 20 May 2025
