Indian Railways had advertised its plan to offer ‘A-1’ and ‘A’ category stations on Indian Railways for redevelopment on ‘as is where is’ basis, by inviting open bids from interested parties duly providing for amenities and other requirements of the Railways. The cost of station redevelopment was to be met by leveraging commercial development of land and air space in and around the stations. Twenty three stations were initially taken up for bidding in first phase by Zonal Railways under the Program. Out of these 23 stations, bids were received for two stations viz. Jammu Tawi (Northern Railway) and Kozhikode (Southern Railway) stations, which are under evaluation.

Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Limited (IRSDC) have been entrusted the work of redevelopment of Anand Vihar, Bijwasan, Chandigarh, Gandhinagar, Habibganj (Bhopal), and Surat railway stations. Works have commenced at Habibganj and Gandhinagar stations. Bids for Surat station (Western Railway) and Anand Vihar, Bijwasan & Chandigarh (Northern Railway) have been invited.

An MoU between Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) and NBCC India Ltd. has been signed for development of the following 10 stations:

Tirupati, Delhi Sarai Rohilla, Nellore, Madgaon, Charbagh, Gomtinagar, Kota, Thane new, Ernakulam Junction and Puducherry.

Contracts have been finalised for Gomtinagar and bids have been invited for Charbagh (Lucknow) station and Tirupati stations. All the above works have been offered to indigenous companies/firms. Therefore, there is no question of negligence of indigenous companies/firms by Railways in this regard.

Redevelopment of stations is planned through leveraging of commercial development of vacant land/air space in and around stations. Therefore, no funds have been earmarked for the purpose. Such projects shall generally be cost neutral to Railways.

This information was given by the Minister of State of Railways Shri Rajen Gohain in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

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SVS/MKV