NEW DELHI: Railway stations in Smart Cities will be redeveloped for enhancing passenger amenities, easy access to stations and enabling optimal utilization of land at railway stations.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in this regard was signed between Ministry of Railway and Ministry of Urban Development.
To begin with, 10 cities could be taken up for the proposed redevelopment with the involvement of National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) which has successfully executed redevelopment projects on self-financing basis. These include Sarai Rohilla (Delhi), Bhubaneswar, Lucknow, Varanasi, Jaipur, Kota, Thane, Margao (Goa), Tirupati and Puducherry.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said that railway stations have been the core of city development and have become congested over time and their redevelopment offers immense opportunities for changing city landscape.
Many countries like Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, UK and Belgium have showed interest in redevelopment and a Round Table of domestic and overseas bankers will be organized next week to discuss financing of these redevelopment projects.
To be implemented first in the 100 cities included in the Smart City Mission, redevelopment of railway stations will be undertaken in AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) and HRIDAY (Heritage Infrastructure Development and Augmentation Yojana) cities extending the scope of the MoU to over 500 cities.
Railway station and the adjoining area in each of these cities will be redeveloped on the lines of Area Based Development provided in the Smart City Mission Guidelines. Average cost of redevelopment of identified area of about 500 acres in the Smart City Plans of 60 cities approved so far comes to about Rs 1,500 cr.
While the Ministry of Railways takes the responsibility of 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.