Railways aims to garner Rs1,000 cr this fiscal by monetising land

The Rail Land Development Authority, a statutory body under by the railways ministry created specifically to look into monetising the vast tracts of unused land owned across the country by Indian Railways, has targeted a revenue of Rs1,000 crore this fiscal from leasing it out to real estate and retail players.

Ginger Hotels, the budget hotel brand of the Tata Group, is a leading bidder for 15 of the 43 multi-functional complexes being offered for development by RLDA so far this year.

Real estate developers including Parsvanth Developers and retail chain operators like Pantaloons, Cafe Coffee Day, The Loot, Woodland, Apodis Hospitality Krishnan Palace Residency, and WH Smith (Travel News Services), are others who have evinced interest, RLDA general manager Anil Kumar Gupta told newspersons in Hyderabad on Thursday.

The authority will open the bidding process for nine sites at different places in the country, including Bandra in Mumbai as well as land in Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Vijaywada, Aurangabad, and Amritsar.

''We intend to complete the bidding process for these sites by this fiscal end,'' Gupta said. He was in the Andhra Pradesh capital in connection with the bidding for multi-function complexes (MFC) being set up at railway stations through private participation.

Gupta said the authority will not dictate the end-use of the land for these commercial sites, unlike the multi-functional complexes coming up in and around railway stations. The land parcels now on offer, which will be leased out for 35-45 years, can be used to set up office space, retail outlets and malls.

Indian Railways is estimated to have about 43,000 hectares of vacant land across the country, making it perhaps India's biggest single owner of unused land.

The RLDA has identified about 136 sites spread over 1,485 hectares at different locations across the country for commercial development. ''Out of this, about 73 sites were found to be unsuitable for commercial use and hence we returned them back to the Railways. The remaining 63 sites covering 536 hectares are now with us for leasing out to private players for commercial development,'' Gupta said.

To develop facilities for rail users, Indian Railways had introduced the concept of multi-function complexes at railway stations. These would include shopping stores, food stalls / restaurants, book stalls, automated teller machines, medical stores, parking facilities, and budget hotels where the size of the site is at least 1,500 sq metres.

Gupta said railway lands at stations, usually 1,000-3,000 square metres, had been identified for MFCs.

Bids were invited for a one-time lease premium and annual lease rent; successful bidders were given the land on a 45-year lease. After the lease period, MFCs would be transferred to the railways.