Railway station development projects receive good response from investors

Although Covid-19 pandemic led to slowdown in economy, the Indian Railways station development project has received good response from investors as 32 private players have shown interest to participate in modernisation of four major railway stations in the country.

Major players including JKB Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd., GMR, ISQ Asia Infrastructure Investments, Kalpataru Power Transmission Ltd, Monte Carlo Limited, Kalyan Toll Infrastructure Ltd and Cube Construction Engineering have shown interest for redevelopment of Nagpur, Gwalior, Amritsar and Sabarmati — railway stations through Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

"Overwhelming response has been received from developers and fund houses despite the current Covid-19 scenario," S K Lohia, Managing Director, Indian Railway Station Development Corporation ( IRSDC), said.

IRSDC, a nodal agency in the Railway Ministry to redevelopment of stations, said the total indicative cost of redevelopment of four stations will be around Rs 1,300 crore.

"Out of the 32 applications, 9 applications have been received for Sabarmati station (Ahmedabad). The applicants include two ‘Funds’ (ISQ Capital andFairFax ) apart from reputed developers,” Lohia said.

"The total built up area (BUA) allowed for commercial development is 54 lakh square feet. No land use change and prior environmental clearance is required for these projects as these are Railway projects under Railway Act 1989," he said.

These four projects hold distinction of being the first railway projects to have in principle approval of Public Private Partnership Appraisal Committee (PPPAC), formed by Centre' s PPP projects. These four stations are also the first ones to have provision of pre-determined user charges on passengers and visitors as one of the main revenue stream for the concessionaire of the redeveloped stations.

These redeveloped hubs will be called as ‘Railopolis’, as it will attract huge investment and business opportunities, Lohia said.

After shortlisting the applicants, Request for Proposal will be called in which bids will be submitted by the bidders. It is likely that the work will start soon in all the four projects, Lohia said.

The Indian Railways earlier unveiled ambitious project of modernising 400 major railways stations across the country with PPP. Habibganj Station in Bhopal is the first railway station being modernised through PPP.