Private players free to choose any railway station for revamp

NEW DELHI: Private players can select any of around 8,000 stations across the country for revamping and transforming it as a world class station.

The government has visualized that these stations would be equipped with escalators, shopping outlets, restaurants and Wi-Fi- enabled waiting lounges.

Railways minister Suresh Prabhu has come out with a new policy wherein the national transporter would not select 10 or 50 stations to be developed into world class stations, but it would be left for the private developers to select a particular station.

The national transporter has decided to put all details about these stations such as requirement for passenger area, space for operational purpose and the vacant land or space which railways can offer to the private developers for commercial exploitation.

"The private developer can directly approach general manager (GM) at zonal railways if they want to develop any station in the region," said a railway official.

"All stations should have adequate waiting rooms, ladies dormitories, segregation of arrival and departure, essential facilities such as catering and unifying integration at both sides of the city," Prabhu had said after taking over.

There is feeling that the transporter alone can't development many stations considering huge financial constraints.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also stressed for privatization of passenger services at stations. "Railway facilities are the same as they were 100 years back ... Privatize the railway stations and modernize them," the PM had said. "I will make it in 10-12 places. Stations should be better than airports as most travellers are poor people. We can easily have trains running below and commercial properties above (floor)," Modi had said.

The PM said at a time when real estate is expensive, railways should leverage their properties by allowing private parties to build luxury hotels, restaurants and other facilities at stations.

This is not the first time government has indicated to modernize stations which suffer from poor hygiene and lack of passenger amenities.

The railways had set up a special purpose vehicle — station development authority — with equity of Rs 100 crore to give a boost to the ambitious plan. The authority has identified five stations--Anand Vihar and Brijvasan in Delhi, Chandigarh, Habibganj in Bhopal and Shivaji Nagar in Pune. But the plan could not take off.

"The fresh initiate would work as private players are given choice," said an official, adding that they would be engaged to modernize passengers amenities at stations while they would be allowed to commercially exploit the real estate space available in heart of the city around the stations.