Sealdah's iconic british-era DRM building to be demolished for platofrm extension

Sealdah DRM Building - the heritage structure on Kaiser Street, on the other side of Sealdah railway station’s platform 1 tracks will be demolished to make way for development. The 1928-built tower will be razed for the recent infrastructure upgrade, in which all 21 platforms have been extended to accommodate 12-car EMU rakes for Sealdah’s 900 suburban services.

"The plan was painstakingly revised to keep this beautiful structure standing in all its glory, untouched for now. Eventually, it will go to make way for the massive development plan, which hinges on platform extension to accommodate 15-car rakes,” said Deepak Nigam, DRM, ER’s Sealdah division administrative head who has been instrumental in the mammoth task of the platform extension project.

The plot next to the existing DRM building has been allocated to replace the old one. Pre-construction work has started, like excavation and piling for the new building.

Sealdah station started operating on Dec 2, 1862, and the DRM office would function out of a temporary two-storey structure on the eastern side of the railway tracks. It was only in 1928 that the existing Sealdah DRM building was constructed.