NEW DELHI: In a first such move, the railway has brought the commercial earnings and Non-Fare Revenue (NFR) under the ambit of electronic auction through Indian Railway e-Procurement System (IREPS) with effect from June 24. It will end the tedious process of tendering railway services like like parcel van, advertisement rights on station circulating areas and coaches, the AC retiring room, cloakrooms, parking slots, etc.
The move will especially give a boost to small entrepreneurs and start-ups. No financial turnover requirement will be for annual contracts of up to 40 lakh. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw launched the digitally-developed system across all sections of the railway. He said that around 10,000 assets related to the railway, including the parking slots would be auctioned digitally without going through a lengthy process (of issuing tenders) that used to earlier take months to be finalised.
The earning assets up for auction will be parcel vans, pay-and-use toilets, advertisement rights on station circulating areas and coaches, air-conditioned waiting rooms, cloakrooms, parking lots, plastic bottle crushers, ATMs, and station co-branding, video screens for content on-demand etc. These assets will be mapped location-wise on the portal once and the system will remember if it is covered for earning or not.