Railways eyes ₹7,500 crore from leasing land for commercial use
NEW DELHI : Indian Railways plans to invite bids from private companies to lease out 84 surplus plots worth over ₹7,500 crore in the next 18 months, two people aware of the matter said. The move is part of the land monetization plans by the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA), which is responsible for the redevelopment and commercial exploitation of surplus land. The authority has been entrusted with 119 commercial sites for development, of which bids for 35 with a lease value of ₹2,835 crore have already been awarded.
“The plan is to accelerate the leasing of balance sites, some of which are in prime land in metros and other large cities and near places of tourist interest, so as to complete the process in FY25. Commercial leasing of this land would allow railways to get annual lease rent over the full period of the lease that could vary between 45 years, 60 years and 99 years," said one of the two people cited above, requesting anonymity. To put this in perspective, the railways managed asset monetization worth only ₹133 crore in FY21, followed by ₹655 crore in FY22 and ₹3,000 crore in FY23.
According to the person cited above, commercial development of prime land parcels is a quick and efficient way of monetizing railway assets and is popular with private sector developers. This method is also important for railways which has been slow to monetize assets among infrastructure sector ministries. A query sent to a spokesperson for the railway ministry remained unanswered.
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