Project bonanza in offing with rail land leases

Rahul Kamat

Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) has prepared an action plan for fast tracking the development of 75 multi-functional complex (MFC) sites in current year for which bidding process is being initiated in phases.

Recently, RLDA has conducted a pre-bid meeting in Andhra Pradesh to invite bids for commercial development of MFCs at eight stations. "We have received a good response for this pre-bid meet," Pankaj Jain, Vice Chairman, RLDA, told Projects Info immediately following the meeting in Hyderabad to discuss lease locations in Andhra Pradesh. He further added: "Around 15-16 developers have shown their interests."

RLDA has identified Dharmavaram, Karimnagar, Kurnool Town, Nellore, Nizamabad, Vijayawada, Zahirabad and Kacheguda for MFCs. Players like Ginger Hotels, Cafe Coffee Day and Pantaloons have shown their interests in developing MFCs at these locations.

Apart from these players, Loot, Woodland, Apodis Hospitality, Krishnan Palace Residency, WH Smith (Travel News Services) have also shown their interests.

Several other important sites for commercial development of surplus railway land including Bandra (Mumbai), Amritsar, Chennai, Vijayawada, Aurangabad, Vishakhapatnam and Bangalore are also soon going to be offered for bidding for leasing up to 30-45 years.

"For locations such as Bandra in Mumbai and Amritsar in Punjab, we are in the process of calling bids by next month," informed Jain. However, he added, "We are still waiting for the valuation for the Bandra location as the state government is delaying the process."

So far, RLDA has invited nine bids in the current year for development of 43 MFCs in northern, western and southern India. These include stations like Dehradun (Uttarakhand), Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh), Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (Mumbai), Vasai Road (near Mumbai), Anand and Somnath (Gujarat), Gulbarga (Karnataka), Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh), Amritsar (Punjab), Chandigarh and Amethi (Uttar Pradesh).

In the current year, there has been good response for the last bidding carried out in Western Railway in which a total of 25 financial bids were received. Financial bids for these MFCs were opened on 10 September and the total present value of the lease premium and annual lease rent received for MFCs at eight stations is Rs 20.27 crore.

MFCs at 26 railway stations developed jointly with IrconISL and RITES have already been completed and are waiting for being leased out. In addition, Haridwar, Udaipur, Raipur, Madurai, Allahabad, Jabalpur, Bardhhaman, Manmad and Guntur are awaiting clearance from the Railway Board.