The railways’ plan of modernising its stations by providing better passenger amenities and swanky infrastructure has run out of steam. The national transporter?s station modernisation drive under modern, model, Adarsh and World Class stations schemes is languishing in the loco shed as the national transporter missed its modernisation target for the financial year 2012-13 by a huge margin.
Railways had set a target to convert 62 stations into model stations in the previous fiscal but could only modernise 40 stations. The target was to convert 36 big stations into modern stations but couldn’t convert even half the stations. However, under the Adarsh stations? head, the performance of railways has not been any better. Railways had a target of converting 296 stations but it could only convert 253 stations.
The national transporter carries out station modernisation under various heads where the stations to be redeveloped are categorised as modern stations, model stations and Adarsh stations, based on the revenue they generate and the kind of footfall they get. Under the modern head, A1 stations are provided with escalators and other passenger amenities, and under Model and Adarsh categories, stations get retiring rooms, pay and use toilets, book stalls and phone booths.
Meanwhile, railways most ambitious world class station project is yet to take off and no target was fixed for it, neither in the previous budget nor in this budget. However, the time when this plan was mulled, there was a target to convert 50 stations into world class stations on public private partnership but it still remains a distant dream for railways. The newly-formed Railway Station Development Corporation is planning only five stations to redeveloped with private investments: Chandigarh, Bijwasan, Anand Vihar, Habibganj and Shivaji Nagar In the current year, the station development authority has a target to attract a private investment of R1,000 crore, which is very unlikely for the corporation given the low commercial viability of stations.
The amount of R1,100 was provided in the previous budget for providing passenger amenities in the last budget but was revised to R965 crore as railways couldn’t meet its internal generations, the railway ministry told the standing committee on railways. In the current budget railways has set aside R1,200 crore for passenger amenities.
