2 min readNew DelhiSep 10, 2012 03:50 AM IST
First published on: Sep 10, 2012 at 03:50 AM IST
The cash-strapped Railways may want to commercially exploit its vast,unused land across the country for extra earnings but it turns out that almost 50 per cent of its land currently entrusted with the Rail Land Development Authority RLDA is not viable for such ventures.
Around 43 of the 138 sites that the Railways gave to the RLDA to lease out to interested bidders have been found to be plagued with either encroachment or are located in areas where no commercially viable venture looks possible for now,while some others are too small or too narrow for any lucrative business. The RLDA has written to the Railway Ministry for alternative sites.
A recent Cabinet approval lifted a ban on Railwayss commercial utilisation of land after which the RLDA restarted the process of leasing out the sites. For the current fiscal,it has set a target of leasing out six such sites in Chennai,Bangalore,Katra,Amritsar,Vizag,and Vijayawada.
The huge expanse of unused land around 43,000 hectares represent a potential real-estate goldmine. Currently,the RLDA has been entrusted with around 1,500 hectares,of which around 650 hactares are unusable,officials said. Shopping malls,hotels,entertainment centres and offices are some of the types of real-estate development expected on these sites.
Railway officials said of the total number of plots given to the RLDA,58 are readily usable,and as for the rest,it is an ongoing process to clear the bottlenecks and make them fit for various use.
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