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The Ministry of Urban Development and the Ministry of Railways on Wednesday signed an MoU under which railway stations and adjoining areas will be redeveloped on smart city lines for enhancing passenger amenities, providing easy access to stations and enabling optimal utilisation of land at railway stations.
“This convergence-based city development will result in qualitative improvement in city life,” Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu said in a statement. He also suggested that to begin with 10 cities could be taken up for the proposed redevelopment with the involvement of public sector construction company NBCC (India) Ltd.
These cities are Sarai Rohilla (Delhi), Bhubaneswar, Lucknow, Varanasi, Jaipur, Kota, Thane, Margao (Goa), Tirupati and Puducherry. “Redevelopment work of Habibganj railway station has already been awarded and plans for Anand Vihar (Delhi), Surat, Bijwasan and Gandhinagar are in an advanced stage,” Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu said.
Several countries such as Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK and Belgium have showed interest in redevelopment and a round-table of domestic and overseas bankers will be organised next week to discuss financing of these redevelopment projects, Prabhu added. To be implemented first in the 100 cities included in the Smart City Mission, redevelopment of railway stations will be undertaken in the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation and Heritage Infrastructure Development and Augmentation Yojana extending the scope of the MoU to over 500 cities, the statement added.
Two joint ventures The MoU proposes two joint venture options for speedy redevelopment of railway station centred areas. The first being between the Railways and the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) formed for execution of Smart City Plans, with equal share in equity. In the second model, NBCC can be roped in with equal share among the three. NBCC can design, develop and execute the redevelopment plans on self-financing basis.
While the Ministry of Railways will be responsible for forming joint ventures, the Ministry of Urban Development will work with the states and urban local bodies for integrating railway station redevelopment as part of smart city development plans.
The validity of the MoU is five years and can be extended with the consent of both Ministries.
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