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| Railway Land Dev. Authority |
Indian Railways is the third largest Railway Network in the world by size. Total route length of 68,155 km as of March 2019. They are engaged in Passenger travel services. Freight services, Parcel carrier services, catering and tourism services, parking lot operations and other related services.There are about 1.23 million employees. The total revenue earned in 2018-19 was 197,214 crores, and the net Income was 6,014 crores. So it is a massive massive organisation incomparable to any other organisation in the country.
All that is okay. On the ground, for the public, the Indian Railway is what the public perception is. Or what the common man feels from what he sees and experiences. I have traveled through the length and breadth of this country. In spite of knowing details of greatness of Railways, I cannot be oblivious of the fact that there is utter neglect in respect of maintenance of the assets of this organisation. In fact the asset structure is so huge that not many people in this organisation starting from the successive Union Railway Ministers to the present incumbent, has been able to take a full view of the massive structure of Railways. I only gather that the present Union Minister is a quite enlightened person and he has the complete picture. That is why he has now merged all the services and is working tirelessly to make this the best in the world contributing substantially to GDP to the nation. From my own experience I may tell you that the existing old staff of the organisation goes with the view of "This is the best we can do. Nothing more is possible"
Taking a look at the Rail Corridor (shown below) near where I live, I see a few things which determine my perception of Indian Railways. The rail line is being upgraded to a broad gauge line. In fact the whole width of this picture including the metro line is the railway corridor. The front side has been handed over for metro line. The back side half you see is for the purpose of broad gauge rail nerwork. A fresh line is being laid down. For that the bottom ballast has been laid. As may be seen the ballast almost touches the houses on the back side.
That means since a number of years people have been permitted to live there. They have even made permanent structures for living there.
How does that happen on the first place? In the Urban development plan it is stated that on both sides of the Rail Corridor, Roads of equal width of some approximately 15 meters are supposed to be there. That means both the Municipal Corporation and the Indian Railways looked the other way while the encroachments were happening. This is in the heart of Ahmedabad. Today a person buys a house in front of this corridor on this side of the road by paying nearly one crore. In spite of that they have to face a Rail Corridor which is used as a dumping ground. On reading my previous blogs and seeing the pictures on tweeter account, some of the Railway Officials took interest and in a matter of few hours a team of RPF personnel visited this site and in a matter of minutes the whole corridor was cleared of garbage and the people engaged in garbage business. That only proves that the people engaged in vandalism on the rail corridors know that they are not doing the right thing and on RPF's ordering them to get out they almost ran. If these hooligans know that RPF os patrolling they would not venture to restart any undesirable activities on the rail corridor. Getting rid of the nuisance is not the only requirement of the corridor. How best it can be put to use so that the corridor becomes a place useful to the community living around them and how the vacant corridors can become a source of revenue generation should be uppermost in the minds of the planners.
One need not go through the details of what is happening in other parts of India. At other places also the situation is no better. In fact some of my friends from West Bengal say that there it is even worse, We can therefore safely say that much more needs to be done in the Rail corridors to make them sound habitats.
In this context what I find is that there is one organisation in Railways the Railway Land Development Authority (RLDA) which is capable of getting this done. Look at the recent news items which show how RLDA is busy doing its bit to bring about a change in the public perception.
23rd Sept. RLDA has invited a Requests For Proposal ( RFP) for leasing a land parcel at East Tambaram, Chennai. This involves 3719 sq metre land with a reserve price of Rs. 8 crores.
15th Sept. RLA invites bid leasing land near Bengaluru Railway station with a reserved price of Rs.90 crores.
28th Aug. RLDA invites bid to redevelop New Delhi station to offer 30 acre of real estate development at an estimated expenditure of Rs. 6,500 crores.
27th August RLDA invites online bids for leasing out a lsnd at Victoria Crescent, Chennai.
19th August RLDA to develop a railway land parcel called Salt Golah into a riverfront luxury tourism and water sports hub spanning across an area of 89,032 sq metre at Howrah, West Bengal. Expects a monetisation of Rs.800 crores.
21st July RLDA invites proposals for redevelopment of Bhuj Station under PPP model. Bhuj Station is one of the 62 railway stations that RLDA is going for redevelopment to enhance the passenger experience by providing modern amenities at the stations.
22nd June RLDA eyes Rs.50 crore from leasing of 15 multi-functional commercial complexes near stations.
12th June RLDA to develop and sell 64 bungalows in Delhi's Civil Lines. The initial investment on the project would be approximately Rs.408 crores.
9th June RLDA plans hotel, eateries, mass transit system between Mathura and Vrindavan.
4th June RLDA plans redevelopment of Puducherry station and monetise nearby land. The station will be redeveloped with amenities such as provisions for differently-abled, harmonious co-existence of the railway station and real estate projects, green building among others on the Design, Build, Finance, Operate Transfer (DBFOT) model.
22nd May RLDA conducted online pre-bid meeting for the redevelopment of the Dehradun railway station.
15th May RLDA has received expression of interest from GMR, Adani and 28 other companies for redevelopment of Nellore and Tirupati rail stations.
RLDA, is actually a statutory Authority under the Ministry of Railways set-up on 1st November 2006 by an Amendment to the Railways Act,1989. This organisation is responsible for the development of vacant Railway Land for commercial use for the purpose of generating revenue by non-tariff measures and creating assets for Indian Railways. RLDA's mission is to be a leader in creating value through redevelopment of land and Air spaces- residential, commercial and transporation hubs. During the 11th Plan period an approximate budget of around Rs.2,800 billion was made for development of Rail infrastructure. RLDA is the organisation which would be handling this development plan.
Currently RLDA is working on four types of projects - Commercial Projects, Multi-functional Complex, Colony Redevelopment and Station Development.
As seen above a number of projects are underway. Summarizing all the activities going on, I may mention that RLDA has borken all previous records of earnings as well as those of awarding of lease contracts in 2019-20. They have awarded tenders for leasing for long lease of land parcels worth Rs,1550 crores during the year which is highest ever performance so far. The total earning of RLDA during the year 2019-20 has been Rs.931 crores as against 31 crores, 18 crores, 43 crores and 83 crores during the previous four years. In my opinion only RLDA or similar institutions can only bring about a change to the entire railway corridor.
Encroachment is a disease of the undisciplined human mind. If they see no one is telling anything to their occupying, they would first start with nibbling and then continue doing more and more of it and the desire is never satiated. Now I am sure, today in India properties worth a few billion rupees must be under occupation and misuse. To clear and redevelop the entire corridor and developing new corridors without any scope of misuse should be the strategy. It is very clear whether we have to defend our borders at International boundaries or within the country what needs is the fear of the owner. Today we have the largest army for the country to defend our borders. We too need a larger army of RPF to work in unison with RLDA to make the corridors contribute significantly to the GDP of the nation and make the rail network the most attractive and a vibrant rail system in the planet.
Let us look forward to this.
Important Recent Happenings in Railfail
Well researched article and as very rightly pointed out the encroachers are sick minded people who are present everywhere, ready to grab public land wherever available. Sometimes, they do it with active connivance of corrupt officials, local goons and under political patronage. Mushrooming of slums in public places can’t happen without the support of local politicians and goons. But who cares?
ReplyDeleteThank you for your very thoughtful comments
DeleteLast February I traveled with my wife and a friend from New Jalpaiguri Railway station to Darjeeling by heritage train, a prestigious train with a lot of foreign tourists. We were shocked to find that both sides of the entire track passing through Siliguri have been encroached and the dirtiest of all places I have ever seen. I don’t know how we showcase that as heritage train journey and what impression the foreigners must be carrying about the country and the railways.
ReplyDeleteThis is serious. If you have some photos are any write ups please send. I will bring this to the notice of powerful people and try to do something.
DeleteDear Nigamananda, An extremely well researched analysis. Yes, we all know encroachment of public property is rampant everywhere and Railway is the worst sufferer. However, all this is made possible because of complete apathy of the people who are supposed to take care of such properties and the political bosses. "Prevention is better than cure" is the rule here also as once it is occupied multiple forces act to defend the wrong doings. This reminds me of how SBI lost 3.5 acre and 5 acre of lands in the heart of Bhubaneswar. Overall, you have been doing an extraordinary task of bringing it to the notice of Authority concerned.
ReplyDeleteThank you Pulak for your valuable feedback. Such messages makes my resolve to fight even stronger. Thank you so much.
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