The Indian Railways has decided to redevelop and modernise 23 stations across the country and is set to rope in private companies for the job.
The stations that will be redeveloped and modernised are -- Kanpur Central, Allahabad, Lokmanya Tilak, Pune, Thane, Visakhapatnam, Horah, Kamakhya, Faridabad, Jammu Tawi, Udaipur City, Secunderabad, Vijaywada, Ranchi, Chennai Central, Kozhikide, Yesvantpur, Bangalore Cantt, Bhopal, Mumbai Central, Bandra Terminus, Borivali and Indore.
According to reports, work on the first private sector-driven redevelopment programme will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Habibganj station near Bhopal next week.
Bansal Construction have been awarded the contact to redevelop Habibganj station at Rs 400 crore. While Rs 100 crore will be spent for redeveloping the main station, the remaining amount will be utilised for creating secondary facilities.
The financial model for programme has been worked out in a way that the government doesn’t incur any expenditure as the developer will be rebuilding the stations and maintaining it for 15 years. In return, the developer will be granted 45 years’ leasing rights for the commercial properties developed at these stations.
Contracts for redeveloping Faridabad, which falls in the National Capital Region, and at least two station in Delhi (Anand Vihar and Bijwasan) are expected to be finalised by March this year.
The Prime Minister had earlier this month said that his government ‘is focused on development of railways shedding earlier practices wherein the ministry was used as a bargaining tool by the main ruling party to distribute trophies to its allies’.
He had recently laid the foundation stone for redevelopment of Gandhinagar railway station, which will get a face-lift at a cost of Rs 250 crore and will have a 300-room five star hotel built atop.
