India to have two airport-like stations by 2019, says IRSDC

Indian Railway Station Redevelopment Corporation (IRSDC) will be raising close to Rs 2,000 crore from the markets to kick start its ambitious station redevelopment programme for 600 stations, says SK Lohia, the Managing Director and CEO of the company.

In an exclusive interview to CNBC-TV18, he said that Habibganj and Gandhinagar stations will be redeveloped by January 2019.

“The response was not tepid. The PPP bid for Anand Vihar and Bijwasan stations had 8 parties each which had prequalified,” he said.

“We have to work at 600 railways stations and the number of parties, if you take airports also, only five airports presently are on PPP. Other airports are all done by airport authority. So there is a limitation on the number of parties which are there,” he added.

Lohia said that Anand Vihar and Bijwasan stations ran into land monetisation problem because the land given to the company by the DDA was on lease and the lease conditions prescribed that you cannot do commercial development.

IRSDC have requested Ministry of Urban Development and DDA to change the lease conditions, said Lohia.