Mamata again stresses PPP model for railway land development

Keen to boost revenue from the large amount of land lying unused or underused, railways minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday told the Lok Sabha she intends to give a boost to public-private partnerships and will give railway land on lease for infrastructure development.

Intervening during the debate on the railway budget, she said her main thrust would be on "core" activities, regarding which a monitoring mechanism was being set up. "One additional official will be deputed for that purpose," she said.

Referring to her intention to promote PPP model, Banerjee said "it is not that we are selling the land. Our idea is that railways' main asset is their property, which means the land bank."

Noting that railways has more than 3,00,000 acres of land, the minister said, "I think it is better if we can utilise that land. Instead of selling the land, we can give it on lease. We have even prepared a blueprint for that."

Expectedly, she faced some flak from the CPI(M), whose land acquisition policies in West Bengal had been successfully stonewalled by Banerjee. However, she turned aside the criticism with aplomb, pointing out that railway expansion requires only a narrow tract of land, and adding that no land would be acquired forcibly.

White paper welcomed
Meanwhile, Banerjee's proposed white paper on the state of her ministry's financial health was strongly backed by both Congress and JD(U). The move for greater transparency should have been non-controversial, but it was seen by some as an attempt to discredit her predecessor Lalu Prasad Yadav, who has often been accused of financial jugglery to show a good bottom-line.