Railways to set up firm to develop, maintain stations

The responsibility of developing and maintaining thousands of railway stations across the country will be entrusted to a new company under the public private partnership (PPP) route, Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi said Wednesday while presenting his ministry’s budget for the next fiscal.

“I propose to setup a separate organisation. This is a major step. This organisation –Indian Railway Station Development Corporation — will redevelop and maintain stations on patterns of airports,” Trivedi told the Lok Sabha.

According to Trivedi, the organisation will utilise suitable revenue models to maintain the stations under PPP model and has great potential of proving employment.

“This organisation will find suitable revenue models and funded through public private partnership and will be cost neutral to the railways,” Trivedi said.

“Modernisation of stations at major metros has the potential to employ 50,000 people.”

The Indian Railways, which runs the third largest railroad network in the world, has around 7,083 stations on 64,000 km route with 12,000 passenger and 7,000 freight trains. It ferries 23 million travellers and 2.65 million tonnes of goods daily.