In the august presence of Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu in a programme held today at Rail Bhawan today i.e. 14th July, 2016 an agreement was signed between Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Limited and Bansal Group for the redevelopment and modernization of Habibganj Railway Station located in Bhopal, M.P. The Habibganj station would now be the first station to be redevelopment and this station is one of the eight such railway stations which have been allocated to IRSDC by the Ministry of Railways. Minister of State for Railways & Minister of State for Communication (Independent Charge) Shri Manoj Sinha was specially present to grace the occasion. Chairman, Railway Board, Shri A. K. Mital, Member Engineer Shri A.K. Mittal and other Railway Board Members, several other dignitaries and senior officials were among those present on the occasion.Speaking on the occasion, Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu said that this is a historic moment for the Indian Railways to witness this ceremony as it is a result of persistent hard work of the Railway Officers. He said that these days Indian Railways is in real need of revenue as the two source of revenue i.e. passenger fares and freight are not sufficient.
He said that today’s agreement will also improve the economic condition of the railway as commercial space available on the modernized station will bring revenue for the Railways. He said that many more stations redevelopment are in pipeline such as Surat, Gandhinagar(Gujarat) and Bijwasan & Anand Vihar (Delhi) in collaboration with the State Governments. He said that revamped railway stations will make the people of this country proud as well as it will generate revenue for the Railways.Speaking on the occasion, Minister of State for Railways & Minister of State for Communication (Independent Charge) Shri Manoj Sinha said that railway is an organization which first has to earn to provide facilities to its passengers. He said that Railways has given directions to complete the station redevelopment work as soon as possible so that the passengers can avail world class facilities. He said that a passenger’s travel experience right from the beginning of purchasing tickets and getting out of the railways station needs to be development. In a few months Railway is planning to have 20-30 such agreements.
Salient Features of the Agreement
The Indian Railways Station Development Corporation (IRSDC), which has been entrusted to execute the ambitious Railway Station development/redevelopment projects of the Ministry of Railways (MoR), has made a swift progress in processing the appointment of a Developer for the modernization of Habibganj Railway Station, located in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh.IRSDC issued the Letter of Acceptance (LoA) on 7.06.2016 to the selected bidder, a consortium of M/s Bansal Construction Works Pvt. Ltd and M/s Prakash Asphalting & Toll Highways (India) Ltd. The consortium has formed a Special Purpose Company named M/s Bansal Pathways Habibganj Pvt Ltd which will implement this project. The Habibganj station development project is one of the eight such railway stations, which have been allocated to IRSDC by the MoR.
Hon’ble Prime Minister and the Minster of Railways have time and again highlighted the need to redevelop and modernize Railway Station infrastructure across the country. To achieve this objective, the Ministry of Railways have assigned Chandigarh,Shivaji Nagar (Pune), Bijwasan (New Delhi), Anand Vihar (New Delhi), Surat (Gujrat), SAS Nagar (Mohali) and Gandhi Nagar (Gujrat) Railway stations to IRSDC for development/redevelopment.It is expected that some additional stations will be entrusted to IRSDC in the current financial year 2016-17.
Habibganj Railway station, is the first station to be redeveloped through Public Private Partnership (PPP) route under the station redevelopment program of Indian Railways.The total estimated cost of station redevelopment is Rs. 100 Crores, whereas the estimated cost of commercial development is approximately, Rs. 350 Crores. IRSDC has hired the services of leading legal, financial and architectural consultants to operationalize this project. Leading Law Firm ShardulAmarchandMangaldas& Co are the legal consultants, Global Advisory Firm Ernst & Young LLP are the financial consultants and Transaction Advisors, whereas Consortium of M/s GMP International GmbH - Germany + Intercontinental Consultants and Technocrats Pvt. Ltd –India are the technical and architectural consultants for this project. Extensive project development activities, involving all the stakeholdershave been carried out by IRSDC. All the necessary and required approvals such as, planning & development authorities, environment & forest, airport authority, mining, railways, traffic, utilities provider etc are in place. The Govt of Madhya Pradesh has been very supportive in facilitating all clearances which has made Habibganj as the first station in the country to reach this stage.This has given the much needed confidence to the private sector to undertake first such station redevelopment work in the country.
The Developer is mandated to complete the construction of Railway station within three years and after the redevelopment there will be dedicated approach roads along-with municipal roads to ensure easy ingress/exit along with convenient parking provisions, without any traffic congestion in the city roads. It is planned that analogous to the modern airports, Habibganj Railway station will have dedicated pick up and drop off parking facilities for station users. To avoid any congestion or confusion, there will be complete segregation between arriving and departing passengers. The station also will be easily accessible to differently abled passengers. Safety of passengers and other users of the station have also been kept in mind. The station will comply with NFPA (National Fire Protection Act) to mitigate any such fire mishap at a public place.In case of an emergency, the station premises is planned to be evacuated within 4 minutes and passengers can reach the respective designated points of safety in 6 minutes. The station will also promote the use of environment friendly practices. To ensure cleaner energy from renewable and non-conventional energy, provisions for solar energy generation will be provided in the station premises.
Enough catering/food stalls and public conveniences at affordable rates are designed to be at places easily accessible to both on-board and travelling passengers.The development of the Habibganj railway station into a world class railway station will act as a boost tothe process of overhauling the Railway station infrastructure across the country via PPP route. This will also provide the much needed impetus for accelerating private sector participation in development of railway infrastructure in the country. Successful planning and implementation of this project will go a long way in realising the Hon’ble PM’s vision of revamping the country’s infrastructure and changing the Indian Railways landscape in the country forever.