Railway stations will soon be housing 'mini secretariats' and offices

Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand show interest in the redevelopment project

The Railway Board has initiated discussions with several state governments to have mini secretariats and offices at stations, as part of the Indian Railways’ station redevelopment programme. Odisha, Madhya Pradesh (MP), and Uttarakhand have already expressed interest in the project.

“States have expressed interest to set up government offices at stations in Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh), and Dehradun (Uttarakhand),” said a railway official close to the development.

The Ministry of Railways had announced it would redevelop 600 stations with an investment of Rs 1 trillion, making railway land available to private players for commercial and real estate.

Another source in the railways said of this, only 44 stations will be taken up during the initial stage, that too in clusters. “These stations will be taken up in cluster approach so that the developer can balance footfall, revenue, and land availability of various stations,” he added.

The Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation (IRSDC), the nodal agency, is currently working on two projects at Habibganj (Madhya Pradesh) and Gandhinagar (Gujarat).

For Habibganj, the investment by Bansal Group is Rs 450 crore, of which Rs 100 crore would be spent on redevelopment and Rs 350 crore on commercial development.

About Rs 4,000 crore would be spend on the Gandhinagar station. To increase interest of private developers, a new policy approved last year had allowed them to use 20 per cent of the redeveloped area on the station premises for residential purposes. The remaining 80 per cent would be utilised for commercial purposes.

Bids were invited for two other stations, Bijwasan and Anand Vihar in Delhi. But it had to be stalled because of a tussle between the railway ministry and the urban development ministry.

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) had raised objection to land given to the Railways being used for commercial purposes.

“We are in the final stages of coming up with a new revenue-sharing model,” the railway official quoted above said.

The IRSDC is already entrusted with development of 11 more stations at Chandigarh,  Shivaji Nagar  in Pune, Surat, Sabarmati, and Gandhinagar in Gujarat, Gandhinagar in Jaipur, Amritsar, Gwalior, Nagpur, Baiyappanahalli  in Benguluru, Thakurli in Mumbai, and Kanpur Central.

For Gandhinagar and Surat, the IRSDC has already formed a joint venture with Gujarat government bodies. The official said such a joint venture or a special purpose vehicle with the DDA was unlikely to happen.