The Railways is in talks with public sector company National Buildings Construction Corporation Ltd (NBCC) to redevelop two stations — Gomtinagar in Lucknow and Bhubaneswar in Odisha, the Minister of State for Railways, Manoj Sinha, told BusinessLine .

It will be a turnkey project, but the size of the deal, among other details, is yet to be worked out.

Both projects are part of the Railways’ plans to modernise as many as 400 stations. It would like to showcase a few station modernisation projects that would reflect the potential of implementing the scheme.

The Railways is already working on modernising a few stations such as Brijawasan and Anand Vihar in Delhi and Habibganj in Bhopal.

The Bhubaneswar station is being redeveloped with NBCC at the State level, Sinha added. Anoop Kumar Mittal, CMD, NBCC, told this newspaper that talks were still on with the Railways.

“It will most likely be a turnkey project. The size of the project has not been worked out yet as Detailed Project Report (DPR) will be prepared after preliminary discussions are over,” he said.

NBCC is in talks to modernise other stations as well.

“The Railways wants to modernise 400 stations and NBCC is one company that has the required experience with respect to redevelopment projects,” Mittal added.

Swiss challenge method

The Railways has decided to redevelop 400 stations following the Swiss challenge method (a public-private partnership model, the Swiss Challenge method allows developers to suo motu submit a station development proposal, which the Railways can make public for inviting better plans from other developers). On the concerns raised by the Kelkar Committee on the Swiss challenge method of bidding, Sinha said, “If the Swiss challenge method is not a good method of bidding, what is the better alternate to get bidders for railway station development should also be suggested.”

Other redevelopment works

In December 2015, NBCC had announced that it would participate in restructuring of AIIMS infrastructure, which will include ₹5,820-crore redevelopment work of AIIMS Residential Complexes at its Western Campus and Ayurvigyan Nagar in Delhi.

The company is currently engaged in redevelopment of East Kidwai Nagar, New Delhi, which is a ₹5,000-crore project.

Apart from this, it is awaiting Cabinet approval to start work on three new redevelopment projects in Delhi — Netaji Nagar, Kasturba Nagar and Thyagaraj Nagar.

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