Chandigarh’s ‘world-class rly station’ project faces another hurdle as IRSDC shuts down

The corporation had started the work making blueprints, proposals, designs, inviting bids, flouting tenders in 2019 only to abandon it all in the pandemic.

Written by Saurabh Parashar

Chandigarh | October 20, 2021 03:02 AM IST

3 min read

The station will also help to decongest Thane station.

ALREADY DELAYED for over a year and a half due to Covid-19, Chandigarh Railway Station’s development work on ‘world class railway station’ has met with another obstacle as the Indian Railway Station Development Corporation (IRSDC) was shut down on Tuesday. IRSDC was incorporated for the redevelopment of at least 50 railway stations including Chandigarh on the world class railway station pattern in 2012.
It had recently also agreed to undertake 50 percent of Ambala Railway Station for its beautification.

The corporation had started the work making blueprints, proposals, designs, inviting bids, flouting tenders in 2019 only to abandon it all in the pandemic. A railway officer requesting anonymity said, “As the corporation was shut down, all the materials including the proposals, draft plants, blue prints, already rewarded contractors to the private firms etc., will be handed over to the Northern Railway and Ambala Railway Division. It will take at least a month to get all the relevant records.”

SP Hooda, corporation’s consultant for Chandigarh station, said, “We received a letter about the closure of IRSDC today morning. Post Covid-19, a company was selected for the commercial development of Chandigarh Railway Station on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) but the company was retracted from carrying out work due to the pandemic. The next course of action will be cleared in the coming days.”

Ambala DRM Gurinder Mohan Singh, said, “We received information from the centre that the authority has decided “in principle” to close the IRSDC. Chandigarh station was the only railway station in Ambala Division selected to be uplifted as a world class railway station. All the major works including land acquisition, rewarding of contracts are still pending. IRSDC officials will hand over all the relevant documents to us, after which the practical work will start.”

Sources said, “The work of facelifting Chandigarh Railway Station has been progressing at a very slow pace. Only juice corners, eateries, etc., were allotted to private vendors. The actual work is yet to start”. IRSDC was a joint venture between Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) and Indian Railway Construction Company Limited (IRCON) Incorporated in 2012. IRSDC had invited Request for Proposal (RFP) for leasing vacant four land parcels spanning 56,691 square meters of land for mixed-use development as part of Chandigarh Railway Station redevelopment project in February this year. This process was also abandoned.

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