Re-development plan of City station seems to be in doldrums. Private firms are not showing interest in the re-development of city railway station.

In the plan of developing 23 railway stations on the theme of airports by Railway Ministry, Udaipur railway station seems to be moving away from re-development. What is really surprising is that no private firms are showing interest in participating in the project. The station was supposed to have all modern amenities. Firms are not interested in taking the railway land on lease for 45 years.

Railway Ministry struck out Udaipur’s name from the re-development project when no tender applications were filled in by Udaipur firms. The entire project of Udaipur City Railway Station developing similar to airports has gone in dungeons.

Udaipur station was the only one chosen from state of Rajasthan to undergo facelift. The facelift project was decided in January 2017. It was planned that private firms will be given the responsibility of taking over the task of facelift of city station. For this railway department had decided to give the vacant land under railway’s jurisdiction to these private firms for 45 years. Commercial malls, multiplexes and mega markets on the land were part of the project under re-development or the facelift of the city railway station.

In the pilot project Mumbai Central, Hawda, Chennai, Kanpur Central and Allahabad stations were among the 23 stations apart from Udaipur to undergo facelift. Former Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu launched this project through video conferencing on 8^th February 2017. Video conferencing was also done in Udaipur for this project.

The lands to be given for a period of 45 year lease were – park outside city station, central jail and land in front of police lines which calculated to a total of 10.35 acres. As per the project firms were required to invest 100 crore rupees under re-development plan for taking lands on lease. There were plans of having AC restaurants, cafeteria, KFC and McDonald outlets, AC common waiting hall, waiting rooms, retiring rooms etc. at the city station.

It is reported that Railway Ministry issued tenders five times in 8 months for Udaipur City station. Everything was publicised via social media as well. But none of the firms filed their tenders for this. This resulted in the Ministry withdrawing Udaipur’s name from the re-development project.

Chief Manager of North Western Railway, TP Singh said that in the absence of interest from the private firms of Udaipur, the development authorities will now look into this project and further decisions will be taken on this matter.

Source : bhaskarnews