Revamping of Railway Stations by Private Sector

 Indian Railways has advertized its plan to offer ‘A-1’ and ‘A’ category stations on ‘as is where is’ basis for redevelopment by inviting proposals from developers with their designs and business ideas. Railway has already invited Bid for 26 Railway Stations.

            Zonal Railways, in the first phase of station redevelopment program which was launched on 08.02.2017, have already invited bids for 23 stations. The State-wise details of these stations are as under:-

S. No.	Name of Station	State	S. No.	Name of station	State
1	Lokmanya Tilak (T)	Maharashtra	13	Faridabad	Haryana
2	Pune	Maharashtra	14	Jammu Tawi	Jammu & Kashmir
3	Thane	Maharashtra	15	Secunderabad	Andhra Pradesh
4	Mumbai Central	Maharashtra	16	Vijayawada	Andhra Pradesh
5	Bandra Terminus	Maharashtra	17	Ranchi	Jharkhand
6	Borivali	Maharashtra	18	Chennai Central	Tamilnadu
7	Howrah	West Bengal	19	Kozhikode	Kerala
8	Visakhapatnam	Andhra Pradesh	20	Yashwantpur	Karnataka
9	Kanpur Central	Uttar Pradesh	21	Bangalore Cantt	Karnataka
10	Allahabad	Uttar Pradesh	22	Indore	Madhya Pradesh
11	Kamakhya	Assam	23	Bhopal	Madhya Pradesh
12	Udaipur City	Rajasthan

            In the first phase of 23 stations, bids for Jammu Tawi and Kozhikode Railway Stations have been opened on 12.07.2017 and 24.07.2017 respectively.

            Further, a dedicated organization viz. Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Limited (IRSDC) has been set up to undertake redevelopment of stations to international standards. 12 stations viz. Amritsar (Punjab), Anand Vihar (Delhi), Bijwasan (Delhi), Baiyappanahalli (Karnataka), Chandigarh (Punjab), Gandhinagar (Gujarat), Gandhinagar (Rajasthan), Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh), Habibganj (Madhya Pradesh), Nagpur (Maharashtra), Surat (Gujarat) and Shivajinagar (Maharashtra) have been entrusted to IRSDC for redevelopment.

The work of Habibganj Railway Station has been started. A contract of civil engineering works for redevelopment of Gandhinagar Railway Station along with construction of a 300-room hotel on the air space of the station has also been awarded and ground-breaking done. The work is in progress. Bids for Surat Railway Station have been opened on 05.06.2017.

These projects are new to Railways and complex in nature. These require detailed techno-economic feasibility studies, hence no time frame has been presently set for completion of these projects.

The cost of station redevelopment is to be met by leveraging commercial development of vacant land/air space in and around the stations. Therefore, railway funds are not required for station redevelopment projects. Such projects shall generally be cost neutral to Railway.

This Press Release is based on the information given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on 04.08.2017 (Friday).

Courtesy: pib.nic.in