The Hindu Business Line : Terry Farrell & Partners to design Delhi Rly station

Development plans
Terry Farrell would have to submit its report in five months.
The project size to be roughly in the range of Rs 5,000 crore.

Mamuni Das

New Delhi, July 3 The Hong Kong office of Terry Farrell and Partners have bagged the bid to advise the Indian Railways on the architectural design for modernising New Delhi Railway station. The Railways would issue the letter of award in a few days, said official sources.

Terry Farrell and Partners, registered in the UK have designed several stations and transport centres including the integrated transportation centre, Inchon international airport, Korea; Kowloon station masterplan, Hong Kong; South Kensington station, London and Parramatta rail link, Sydney.

Station Modernisation

The Indian Railways had invited requests for proposal from consultants to advise Railways on the detailed design parameters, technical, financial and legal aspects of the process to be adopted for modernising the station.

At present, New Delhi station handles 3.5-lakh passengers per day on an average. Every day, 256 trains, including 78 suburban trains arrive or depart from 12 existing platforms of this station. Four new platforms are being constructed on the ground, which will be ready by end of 2007.

Terry Farrell, which would get about Rs 7 crore for this work, would have to submit its report in five months.

Other consultants in race to advise the Indian Railways for the modernisation include France based-Arep Ville, German firm Von Gerkan Marg and Partners, Hok International (Hong Kong), Aedis Ltd (Hong Kong) and Rites from India.

The Government hopes to award the New Delhi Railway station modernisation project by December this year so that the project is ready by 2010 Commonwealth Games. The Union Railway Minister, Mr Lalu Prasad, expects the project size to be roughly in the range of Rs 5,000 crore.

Standard Document

The Prime Minister’s Committee on Infrastructure has appointed an inter-ministerial group under the Railway Board Chairman to evolve a model concession agreement for the Railway station modernisation by October 31. The group would have Secretaries of the Planning Commission, Department of Economic Affairs, Department of Urban Development and Department of Legal Affairs as members. Planning Commission would be preparing the draft MCA and submit it to the IMG for further deliberations.

The agreement would be the standard document for inviting bids from developers to redevelop the identified Railway stations on a design, build, finance, operate and transfer mode.