Railways launches Rs 1 lakh-cr station redevelopment programme

Railways will take up 400 A1 and A stations for redevelopment through PPP

The ministry of railways today launched the first phase of station redevelopment programme covering commercial development of 23 stations across the country, which is expected to see investments worth Rs 9,000 crore.

As part of the programme, railways will take up 400 A1 and A stations for redevelopment through public private partnership (PPP), which may see at least Rs 1 lakh crore worth of investments. The 23 stations that will be up for bidding in the first phase include Chennai Central, Ranchi, Udaipur, Indore, Yesvantpur, Bangalore Cantonment, Visakhapatnam, Howrah, Kamakhya, Faridabad, Jammu Tawi, Secunderabad, Vijayawada, Kozhikode and Bhopal. 

"We have the largest captive audience and hence it has huge commercial value. We are following a transparent process for this. We are also partnering with the ministry of urban development to develop smart stations in identified smart cities ," said Suresh Prabhu, minister of state for railways. Prabhu added that several pension funds, investors, organisations like world bank and various state governments are also involved in the project.

For the programme, railways had appointed Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as the strategic advisor. Railways will provide approximately 140 acres of land at these stations to the developers on a 45-year lease period. For every zone, railways has appointed a nodal officer to deal with the developers. 

The redeveloped stations will provide amenities like digital signage, escalators, self-ticketing counters, executive lounges, restaurants, malls, theateres and even wi-fi facility. 

As per estimates by the railways, the programme will benefit more than 100 cities and 16 million passengers per day across the country. The programme is expected to provide approximately 2,200 acres of prime land to private developers across the country. 

"This is going to be the largest transit oriented programme ever executed in the country," said A K Mittal, chairman of railway board. This is expected to generate a surplus revenue of about Rs 10,000 crore to the railways on an annual basis.