Indian Railway has advertised its plan to redevelop ‘A-1’ and ‘A’ category stations (about 400 in number) on ‘as is where is’ basis, by inviting proposals from developers with their designs and business ideas. Public Sector Undertakings can also participate under this scheme. During various interactions with the stake holders, their response have been encouraging.

Category of stations is decided on the basis of annual earnings from passenger traffic. ‘A-1’ category stations have annual passengers earnings of more than ₹60 crores and ‘A’ category stations have annual passenger earnings of ₹8 – 60 crores. Details of ‘A-1’ and ‘A’ category stations, State-wise and zone-wise are appended.

The entire cost of station redevelopment is to be met by leveraging commercial development of land and air space in and around the stations. The land is only to be leased to the developers and its ownership shall remain with Railways. The developer shall be responsible for station redevelopment, associated real estate development and operation & maintenance (O&M) of the same. State Governments/local bodies can also be made partner in the scheme, if necessary, in case higher FAR (Floor Area Ratio) is granted by them.

Station Redevelopment projects are complex in nature which require detailed techno-economic feasibility studies and statutory clearances from local bodies. Thus, it is not possible to provide time limit at this stage for completion of these projects.

Presently, there is no proposal for redeveloping stations falling in other categories under above scheme. However, provision/augmentation/improvement of identified passenger amenities at railway stations is taken up as a continuous process depending upon requirement and inter-se priority of works, subject to availability of funds.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Manoj Sinha in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha on 24.02.2016 (Wednesday).