Mumbai: Oshiwara station to be renamed Ram Mandir

The soon-to-be commissioned station between Jogeshwari and Goregaon, till now called Oshiwara in Western Railway files, will soon be renamed Ram Mandir. This is after the state government notified the name change and intimated the railways about it.

Explaining the procedure from here on, Ravinder Bhaker, chief spokesperson of Western Railway said, "There are two different procedures, one involving already existing stations and one involving stations about to be freshly commissioned. In stations about to be commissioned, the state government has the right to come up with a name. After the state approves a station name, it is sent to the Surveyor-General of India who has to give an approval of the correct spelling and the like. It is then forwarded to the Indian Railway Conference Association (IRCA) which generates an alphabetical code for the station."

The IRCA is an organisation in existence since 1903 and functions out of the annexe office of the Divisional Railway Manager's Office Complex, Northern Railway in New Delhi.

Bhaker explained that for stations that already exits, the procedure of renaming it is different. "In this case the name is proposed by the state government or local representatives, it is then sent to the Union Ministry of Home which after approving it suggests the name change to the ministry of railways," said Bhaker.

The erstwhile Oshiwara station, soon to be Ram Mandir, was to be commissioned on Sunday but the demonetization and the subsequent chain of events means it will be commissioned later. However railway officials want the station up and running before the Code of Conduct comes into effect for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls.