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Railways' RLDA Plans to Develop 75 Multi-Functional Complexs during Current Fiscal
New Delhi: Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA), a statutory authority established by the Ministry of Railways for generating non-tariff revenue from railway land, has prepared an action plan for fast tracking the development of 75 Multi Functional Complexes (MFC) sites in current year for which bidding process is being initiated in phases. So far, RLDA has invited nine bids in the current year for development of 43 MFCs in Northern, Western and Southern India. Prominent stations are Dehradun, Ujjain, Vasai Road, Anand, Somnath, Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Gulbarga, Vijayawada, Amritsar, Amethi and Chandigarh. In the current year, there has been very good response for the last bidding carried out in Western Railway in which a total of 25 financial bids were received. Financial bids for these MFCs were opened on September 10th and the total present value of the lease premium and annual lease rent received for MFCs at eight stations is Rs. 20.27 crore which is much more than the minimum expectation of RLDA from these sites.

Now, in its forthcoming endeavour to develop MFCs in Andhra Pradesh, RLDA is holding a pre-bid conference at Hyderabad tomorrow i.e. 12th September 2013 to invite bids for commercial development of MFCs at eight stations in cities of tourist and religious interest in Andhra Pradesh, namely Dharmavaram, Karimnagar, Kurnool Town, Nellore, Nizamabad, Vijayawada, Zahirabad and Kacheguda. These eight centralised complexes will have the facilities for rail users such as shopping, food stalls/restaurants, book stalls, ATMs, medicines and variety stores, budget hotels, parking etc. Prominent bidders and developers from retail and hotel chain industries have expressed their keen interest to attend this pre-bid conference.

Multi Functional Complex project offers unique opportunity for retailers, hotel chain operators, developers and other such stakeholders for expanding and enlarging their footprint across hundreds of important towns and cities in the country. Real estate consultants like Knight Frank and JLL are advising RLDA in planning and marketing the MFCs sites. Several leading brands, retail, hotel chains and developers have expressed their interest in MFCs being developed by RLDA and prominent among them are Pantaloon, Café Coffee Day, The Loot, Woodland, Apodis Hospitality, Krishnan Palace Residency, WH Smith (Travel News Services). MFCs at 26 railway stations developed jointly with IrconISL and RITES have already been completed and are waiting for being leased out, prominent places being Haridwar, Udaipur, Raipur, Madurai, Allahabad, Jabalpur, Burdwan, Manmad, Guntur.

Several other important sites for commercial development of surplus railway land including Bandra, Katra, Amritsar, Chennai, Vijayawada, Aurangabad, Vishakhapatnam and Bangalore are also soon going to be offered for bidding for leasing up to 30-45 years. These sites are attractively located in the respective cities and are suitable for shopping malls, entertainment, offices, hotels and other such real estate developments. RLDA has targeted for earning more than Rs. 1000 crore from these sites during the current financial year.

RLDA has also been entrusted by Ministry of Railways for development of five railway stations at Chandigarh, Anand Vihar (Delhi), Bijwasan (Delhi), Habibganj (Bhopal) and Shivajinagar (Pune) into modern railway stations with excellent facilities for rail users. These stations are being developed through Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Ltd., a joint venture company created by IRCON and RLDA in which the former is the majority partner. The company has already started operation and Master Plans are under finalisation. These stations will be developed by leveraging the real estate and retail potential at the railway stations.