The rail budget has thrown up major opportunities for private infrastructure developers by promising

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to modernise 50 railway stations to world standards through the public-private-partnership (PPP) route.

Companies that would be keenly looking at the proposal are the likes of Lanco Infratech, Era Infrastructure, Reliance Industries Ltd, DLF Ltd, GMR Infrastructure and GVK Power and Infrastructure. All of them had bid for earlier PPP projects offered by the railways.

Railway minister Mamata Banerjee announced that the new amenities in these stations would include entertainment, shopping and eateries. The list includes 26 stations, which have been pending for upgradation since 2007. None of the projects have taken off yet.

The minister also sought private participation for construction of multi-functional complexes at the 50 stations for providing facilities like shopping, book stalls, budget hotels and underground parking. Basic amenities like toilets, catering services, waiting rooms and dormitories will be upgraded at 375 stations.

Railway Board, member (traffic), V N Mathur said the upgraded stations would have separate passages for arrival and departure to deal with congestion. He said a big station like New Delhi would require about Rs 5,000 crore to be upgraded to international standards.

Railways finance commissioner Sowmya Raghavan said though the investment requirement would vary from station-to-station, with the smallest ones requiring minimum Rs 1,000 crore.

Stations that have been included in the programme include Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Sealdah, Howrah, Pune, Nagpur, Mangalore, Chandigarh, Secunderabad, Bhubaneswar, Lucknow, Varanasi, Amritsar, Kanpur, Guwahati, Jaipur, Tiruvananthapuram, Tirupati, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Gaya, New Jalpaiguri, Porbandar, Ajmer and Puri.

Lanco Infratech chief financial officer J Suresh Kumar told Financial Chronicle that the company would participate in the railways PPP venture.

Era Infrastructure HS Bharana told this newspaper that the company sees major opportunities after the Friday’s announcement. “We will participate in all the contracts, built-operate-transfer or engineering-construction-procurement for expansion of lines, upgradation of stations. We are confident that we have enough experience in the sector and will be able to qualify on our own,” Bharana said.

Chandrajit Banerjee, director general of industry body CII said, “This budget is unique in the way inclusivity and overall development has been the focus without losing focus on safety, technology adoption and commercialisation while providing opportunities for industry though its capacity expansion programme and setting up infrastructure through PPP mode.”

However, Feedback Ventures infrastructure advisory division president Akhileshwar Sahay said the government’s commitments to develop specific doable projects on PPP are commendable but there is a serious question mark on speed and delivery efficiency of such an exercise in view of the fact that barely 0.4 per cent of private investments happened in tenth plan and the eleventh plan score card is yet to open.