Thaindian News

New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) In order to pursue its four year old ambitious plan to create world class stations, the Indian Railways Wednesday announced the creation of a dedicated authority to do the job.

Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi told reporters here that a special purpose vehicle (SPV) called the “Railway Stations Development Corporation Limited” will be created to make the railway stations world class.

A memorandum of understanding for the SPV was signed between two railway PSUs - the Ircon International Limited (IRCON) and the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) - here Wednesday.

The SPV will have an initial corpus of Rs.100 crore with 51:49 equity between Ircon and RLDA.

The SPV will also maintain stations across India as part of the continuous process of augmenting and improving amenities at the railway stations.

“The zonal general managers are burdened with many other responsibilities. Hence the need for a separate authority to develop the stations,” said Trivedi.

He said the move followed from the Vision 2020 presented by his party chief and former railway minister Mamata Bannerjee.

Trivedi said it is imperative to have modern stations which would be functional, customer-oriented and well equipped with proper circulation area and railway operation facilities.

He said the railways has sent letters to the state governments and the local bodies to improve the surrounding areas and the approach roads to the stations.

Railways hope the new entity will help it develop the stations as vibrant centres of cities for commerce, entertainment and social space.

The Vision 2020 document had acknowledged that the stations on Indian Railways are far behind those in the advanced countries and the stations located in major metropolitan cities are ill-equipped to handle growing passenger traffic.

The new SPV is expected to provide the identified stations with well designed concourses, high quality waiting spaces, easy access to the platforms, congestion free platforms, modern catering facilities, hotels and other facilities.

“The redeveloped stations would be disabled friendly and would have provision for convenient entry, inter platform transfer and easy access to all the facilities for them,” said Trivedi.