Finally, a year after renaming Elphinstone Road to Prabhadevi in July last year, the Western Railway has officially adopted the name change. From intervening night of July 18-19, the station will be known as Prabhadevi.
Authorities were supposed to put this into effect last year itself, which had attracted a lot of political attention, and were waiting for a grand function for the same.
Elphinstone Road was named after Lord Elphinstone who was the governor between 1853 to 1860. This name change follows the ones of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus to which Maharaj was added recently by Central Railway. And Oshiwara station which was named Ram Mandir in 2016.
"Necessary changes are being made on station boards, indicators, passenger announcement system for the benefit of passengers. The station code for Prabhadevi will be PBHD," said Ravinder Bhakar, chief public relations officer, Western Railway.
The display bars inside the local trains already show Prabhadevi. This code will be printed on the rail ticket bought from the railway stations.
Railway officials clarified that the name change is a state government decision, which they are simply implementing. It was supposed to come into effect from July 23 in 2017.
The political parties have been demanding changing names of stations that have been named after Britishers.
Some of the other stations in the fray over the name change exercise are Grant Road, Sandhurst Road, Charni Road, Reay Road, Marine Lines and Dadar, officials told this newspaper.
