How safe is New Delhi Station at Night?

My train is at 5AM and I am reaching Delhi at around 10PM the previous evening. I am traveling alone and don;t want to check into a hotel for just 5-6 hours stay. I would rather drink till 12 midnight or so and then spend the night (just 4 hours or so) at the station. My queries:
1. Is there a waiting room? How good is it; I mean cleanliness, sitting arrangement and accessibility.
2. Is it safe to spend the night at the station? I don;t have any valuables except for a laptop.

Freelance

1. New Delhi Station is teaming with people at all times.

2. It has waiting room separately for AC and non AC ticket holders. AC waiting room has better facilities.

3. There is no problem at spending night at the station. You'll find many people doing so. But if you decide to wait there, take care of your laptop.

My suggestion - Book an inexpensive room at Paharganj and catch some sleep.

OP would rather drink He can sleep in the platform spreading a sleeping back and/or newspaper

New Delhi Station is safe for day and night every time but the outside area is not well for new persons late night there. So be sure that don't go outside new delhi railway station late night or before morning.

If you are concerned about safety, better not to be too drunk in a public place new to you.

Alcohol and safety just don't seem to work well together, unless of course you are only planning on having one or two drinks. If it were me I would skip the alcohol and maybe stay in the airport for a few hours or so, then head over to the train station.

Thank you all for the replies.
Yes, I spent the night (or whatever few hours) in the AC waiting room on Platform 1. I was never planning to get too drunk, had 4*60ml pegs (I can't get 'drunk' on this, have a deep tank :-P).
The AC waiting room was a mess, what with people traveling with family and throwing bottles/paper plates around, cockroaches and flies . But at least got a place to sit.

Had an interesting experience a few years ago.

Had a few drinks with an IMer then headed to Nizamuddin to catch my booked train to Mahoba (for Kajuraho), arrived a little too late and missed the train, so with a few drinks inside me I decided to get a local train to New Delhi, I knew there was a late train to Rewa and had always wondered what was there, so went to the current reservations window to see if there were any berths left, had no joy, so decided to get an early morning train to Jhansi.

So, to go to a hotel for a few hours or not, after a quick trip to an Internet cafe, I decided to sleep in one of the walkways inside the station, there were already loads of people sleeping, but I found a place, placed my towel on the floor, and used my backpack as a pillow, I was soon sleeping.

A few hours later (at about 3am) some noise woke me up, there was about 20 policemen walking maybe 3-400 men through the station, one minute they were there, the next they were gone, they come in from the Paharganj side and headed onto the main bridge running through the station over all the platforms, it was all very neat and organised, I was questioning myself and wondering if it had been a dream, but it was real, and to this day I have no idea who they were or where they were going, I stayed awake from then.

3 things worth knowing.

1, the current reservation window is the place to go to see if there are any berths left on a train in the last few hours (after chart preparation).

2, New Delhi station is safe at night.

3, a fair way along Paharganj (about half a km) there's a couple of hotels that have 24 hour Internet Cafes, they'll also supply chai if you ask nicely.

i think this is an excellent idea - instead of hourly bed, you get an hourly chair

A chair by the hour.....half a km from New Delhi station, this idea could catch on along the GB Road.