Indian Railways Gwalior, Amritsar, Nagpur, Sabarmati stations to be swanky! IRSDC calls out interested bidders.

World-class Indian Railways’ stations soon! The Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Limited, under the Railway Ministry, is all set to transform four railway stations – Gwalior, Amritsar, Nagpur, and Sabarmati, into swanky airport-like hubs. In December 2019, Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation (IRSDC), a joint venture company of RLDA and IRCON, had invited RFQs (Request for Qualification) for the redevelopment of these four railway stations. The renovation works of several railway stations across the country are being undertaken under the Railway Ministry’s station beautification and redevelopment plan.

In Indian Railways’ history, these four railway station redevelopment projects are the first to be approved by the Public Private Partnership Appraisal Committee, formed by the Indian government for PPP projects. For the approval of the master plan as well as building plans, IRSDC will be a single window, in consultation with local authorities. Interested bidders can apply for this one of its kind investment opportunity before the last date of 26 June 2020. To review and submit an application, interested bidders can visit https://irsdc.in/active.

According to details shared by IRSDC, the RFQs of the four railway stations are based on user charge as well as mixed use land monetization. The corporation stated that this investment opportunity is planned on a DBFOT model with 60 years of concession period for station development and station estate development. The DBFOT model refers to Design, Build, Finance, Operate, and Transfer. However, for residential/city side development, the concession period has been set at 99 years.

The entire procedure for bidding is a two-stage bidding process comprising of RFQ as well as RFP (Request for Proposal). The one who wins the bid will be selected for the upgradation as well as redevelopment of these railway stations, along with the development of the surrounding railway land. This will also include maintenance as well as operations.

THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS