Railways to put 500 acres of land to commercial use
13 Mar 2007
New Delhi: The Indian Railway plans to offer over 500 acres of prime land to private developers at over 13 locations across the country. The organisation has earmarked land in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Bangalore, apart from Lucknow, Vishakapatnam, Gwalior and Gaya for the purpose.
The newly set up Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA), formed to commercially exploit the large tracts of land available with the Indian Railways, will offer the land through a public-private partnership (PPP) model.
Under the PPP model, the railways will form joint ventures in which the land will represent the railways' portion of the equity. The plots will be developed for commercial use in the form of shopping malls, office space, plazas and multiplexes.
A consultant is being appointed to work out the details of the project. The sites were shortlisted from an earlier list of 61 locations at an RLDA board meeting a few days ago.
In Delhi, land around the Sarai Rohilla railway station has been earmarked for development. Belgharia and Bidhan Nagar are the two sites in Kolkata. The other locations in West Bengal are Halishahar, Balighat and Kanchrapara.