Bidding for redevelopment of 25 railway stations to begin soon: Suresh Prabhu.

This summer, India plans to auction one of its largest Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects that entails redeveloping 25 of the country's most prominent railway stations at a minimum investment of Rs. 30,000 crore, railway minister Suresh Prabhu told ET.

'The bidding for around 25 stations is about to start. We've held several pre-bid consultations with many big real-estate players that are willing to invest in lieu of a long-term contract for the commercial exploitation of railway land,' Prabhu said.

Among the stations the government wants refurbished are Bengaluru, Lokmanya Tilak (T) in Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Visakhapatnam, Howrah, Allahabad, Kamakhya, Faridabad, Jammu Tawi, Bangalore Cantonment, Bhopal, Mumbai Central (Main), Borivali, and Indore.

Many of these railway stations serve as terminal points or key junctions for both inter-city travel and suburban services, which connect the outlying commuter belt to downtown Mumbai, New Delhi, or Kolkata.

India's railroad network, a colonial inheritance, has struggled to match the country's scorching pace of economic expansion, putting the focus on private partnership for garnering the cash needed to refurbish the rickety infrastructure.

Prabhu said the government and private stakeholders would invest at least Rs. 8 lakh crore in the next five years to modernise the railways that still moved the bulk of the output from coal pits, cement silos, and steel factories.

'We are focusing on infrastructure in a big way, and on meaningful infrastructure. In the 70 years since Independence, we had accomplished just about 16,000 km of doubling (the tracks),' Prabhu said. 'In the past two years, we have sanctioned almost 14,000 km of doubling and work is underway. This would give a huge boost to infrastructure in the next two years when these projects get commissioned.'

In the past two years, Prabhu has been credited with initiating two of the biggest reforms in the railroad sector. Last month, he secured the Cabinet's nod for setting up an independent rail regulator to recommend fares, a move that could de-politise the decision of revising passenger tariffs. And last year, Prabhu voluntarily agreed to merge the railway budget with the general budget.

On the deteriorating financial health of the state-run transporter, the minister said his target was to help the railways clamber out of the cost-inefficiency trap and stablise the future operating ratio at 87-88%. The operating ratio is a key metric for the country's railroads and indicates the money needed for the transporter to earn Rs 100. The railroad's operating ratio was 96% in FY2017, leaving the government with little money to reinvest in the maintenance and improvement of the existing network.

'At the end of the year, people start comparing the Indian Railways to a corporate entity but forget all about its social commitments,' Prabhu said.

The Indian Railways has an additional wage-bill burden of Rs. 25,000 crore as it had to implement the pay increases mandated by the seventh pay commission.

TOI