Nine companies in last lap for redevelopment of four railway stations

Nagpur, Gwalior, Amritsar and Sabarmati to see investment of about Rs 1,300 crore

A total of nine companies have been shortlisted for the redevelopment of four railway stations – Nagpur, Gwalior, Amritsar and Sabarmati – on a public-private partnership (PPP) model.

The shortlisted companies include GMR Business and Consultancy, G R Infraprojects, Kalpataru Power Transmission,  Anchorage Infrastructure Investments Holdings, ISQ Asia Infrastructure Investments, Monte Carlo, JKB Infrastructure, Kalyan Toll Infrastructure, Cube Construction Engineering. For the four stations, 32 applications were received under the Request for Qualification (RFQ) stage from these nine companies. Out of these, 29 were selected on Thursday.  These four stations will be the first ones in the country to have the provision of pre-determined user charges on passengers and visitors as one of the main revenue stream for the concessionaire of the redeveloped stations.

The Indian Railway Station Development Corporation (IRSDC) is the nodal agency for station redevelopment in India. “IRSDC evaluated and shortlisted the applications received and out of the 32 applications, 29 applications are ‘Qualified’ for the next stage. Six applicants qualified for Nagpur, eight for Gwalior, six for Amritsar and nine for Sabarmati,” said an IRSDC statement. The total Indicative cost for the redevelopment of the four stations is about Rs 1,300 crore. The total built-up area allowed for commercial development is 5.4 million square feet.

IRSDC had invited the RFQ on December 2019 and the interests were opened on June 26.  The above four projects hold the distinction of being the first railway projects to have an in-principle approval of Public-Private Partnership Appraisal Committee  (PPPAC), formed by the government for PPP projects.

Earlier, IRSDC was in talks with the Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) and the World Bank to fund the ambitious Rs 1 trillion station redevelopment programme for 400 stations. Last year, IRSDC also came out with a list of stations, inviting private equity players and pension funds for partnerships to fund the redevelopment of at least 10 high-potential stations.

IRSDC is a joint venture company of Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) and IRCON with 50:50 ownership. RITES is also likely to join shortly as another promoter with 24 per cent equity so that RITES and IRCON shall jointly hold a 50 per cent share in the company.

IRSDC is at the core of Indian Railway’s mission of transforming the country’s railway stations into world-class hubs. These redeveloped hubs will be called as ‘Railopolis’ which will attract huge investment and create business opportunities in the heart of cities, creating city centers around redeveloped stations. In October 2019, the slow pace of station redevelopment again came to the limelight when NITI Aayog chief executive officer Amitabh Kant rapped the tardy progress. In a letter to the Railway Board, Kant said despite the commitment to take up 400 stations for last several years, “actual implementation has not happened except for a few isolated cases in which a few stations have been taken up through the EPC Mode.”