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New Delhi: Indian Railways, in an overdrive to increase its profits further, has dropped the idea of building budget hotels near railway stations.
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC), a wing of the railways, had identified nearly 100 sites across the country for the purpose.
The process of floating tenders for 29 budget hotels was at an advanced stage. It has, however, been put on hold with the Ministry of Railway having second thoughts about how to use its surplus land.
According to sources in the ministry, one of the reasons for putting the proposal on hold is the decision of the federal government to construct world class railway stations across the country by replacing the British-era buildings.
"Commercial exploitation of the surplus land is the prime consideration. Making the best use of it is essential for generating additional revenue required to fund several ambitious projects like construction of high speed corridors to introduce concepts like bullet trains in the country," said a member of the Railway Board.
The process of constructing special high speed corridors is about to start with work on the first such corridor connecting Delhi with Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana states 238km north of the national capital, is about to start. It will reduce the travel time from the existing three and a half hours to about 50 minutes.
The Railway Ministry had announced its plan to construct budget hotels under public-private partnership mode two years ago. IRCTC was asked to identify sites where such hotels could be constructed. It has requested the ministry to sanction allocation of land at 29 places when the latest directive came.
Incidentally, Indian Railways along with the Ministry of Defence are the largest land owners in the country. Railways in particular have huge chucks of land in the middle of cities and towns adjoining its stations.
Since construction of world class stations requires huge plots of land, the ministry is working on a plan to invite private developers to construct hotels and malls on its land in lieu of constructing new station buildings.
The proposal to give a makeover to the New Delhi Railway Station before the 2010 Commonwealth Games being held in the metropolis is at an advanced stage. "World class station buildings and high speed trains are the demand of the time. Using surplus land to construct budget hotels will hardly serve the purpose. It makes sense to give land to private developers," the board member said.
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