Railways to tap RLDA for its station development project
(EPT): The Indian Railways will lean on the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) to implement its ambitious station redevelopment programme, a government official aware of the matter said, ahead of the planned closure of the Indian Railway Station Development Corporation (IRSDC), which has been specifically called was specifically built for Purpose.
The Railways, which has already moved about 60 such projects handled by IRSDC to respective zonal railways, will make RLDA the nodal agency to oversee all station redevelopment projects and award contracts, the person cited above said on condition of anonymity.
The RLDA itself is no stranger to station redevelopment – the authority has been part of the Railways’ plan to modernize stations across the country, and is working on over 60 station redevelopment projects.
It is a statutory organization with full rights over station development, land monetization and contract management The shuttering of ISRDC will bring more redevelopment projects under its wings.
Queries emailed to Ministry of Railways remained unanswered till press time.
However, the person cited above said the government has already set in motion the restructuring of Indian Railways that will concentrate many of its functionalities among a few subsidiaries and bodies.
The proposed changes are in line with the suggestions made by Principal Economic Adviser Sanjeev Sanyal in his report on the rationalization of government bodies under the Ministry of Railways. In the report, Sanyal had recommended that one of the two bodies—either IRSDC or RLDA—should be recognized as the sole working entity and given full responsibility. It is also in favor of rationalization of work of RLDA and IRSDC for resource mobilization committee for major railway projects and restructuring of Railway Board and Ministry of Railways.
Apart from station redevelopment, RLDA is also expected to play a key role in the monetization of several railway assets, including its huge land parcel distributed across the country.
Station redevelopment is a top priority for the railway ministry, and work on redeveloping around 120 stations is under way.
Estimated total investment of 50,000 crore for this along with real estate development.
Later, Railways plans to take up 100 more stations for redevelopment. While the railway ministry wants to execute several of them on a public-private partnership model, the absence of private sector interest has led to project awards under the EPC model, where Railways awards contract to a developer on payment of fixed fee. The structure is transferred to Railways on completion.
At current, work on redevelopment of stations in occurring at Habibganj and Gwalior stations in Madhya Pradesh; Safdarjung and New Delhi stations in Delhi, Nagpur, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus and Ajni stations in Maharashtra; Gandhinagar and Sabarmati station in Gujarat; Ayodhya and Gomti Nagar stations in Uttar Pradesh; Tirupati and Nellore stations in Andhra Pradesh; Dehradun in Uttarakhand; Amritsar in Punjab; Ernakulam in Kerala and Puducherry.
The development of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus in Mumbai was earlier being done by IRSDC.