The ambitious proposal to have 50 world-class stations that was announced by railway minister Mamata Banerjee in her Rail Budget speech earlier this year will take between five to six years to come up. The long duration for the completion of the project is not only due to the complexity of the project but also the need to keep a station operational while it is being upgraded to world-class status.
The railways hopes to build these stations through innovative financing or in the public-private partnership mode. Preliminary work on the project has begun. Union minister of state for railways, K.H. Muniyappa, told the Lok Sabha in a written reply on Thursday that consultancy work for preparation of the master plan and feasibility report is on for the New Delhi, CST Mumbai and Patna stations. He further said that the process is on for the appointment of consultants for the Secunderabad, Howrah, Anand Vihar (Phase-II), Kolkata, Porbandar, Surat, Ahmedabad, Sealdah and Chennai Central stations for their conversion into world-class ones.
The bidding process for world-class stations in the PPP mode will be initiated once the master plans and feasibility reports are ready.
As for the 378 stations that were to be converted into “adarsh” ones as per another Rail Budget announcement by Ms Banerjee, the railways has completed work on 342, Mr Muniyappa said in his reply.