CCEA okays revamp of Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad stations

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved the redevelopment of Delhi, Mumbai, and Ahmedabad railway stations at a cost of approximately Rs 100 billion. Addressing journalists after the decision, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that work on redeveloping 199 stations is going on through the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) mode. These are stations that have a footfall of over 50 lakh passengers per day. Stations with over 10 lakh per day passenger footfall will be taken up for redevelopment in the next phase. “Out of these 199 stations, tenders have been issued for 47 stations. Master planning and design for the remaining is underway. Work is progressing fast for 32 stations,” he said, adding that bids for the Delhi, Mumbai, and Ahmedabad stations will be called in 10 days. The CCEA decision is a reversal of an earlier position taken by the Railways where Delhi and Mumbai stations were to be developed under public-private partnership (PPP). Later, in March this year, the Railways had changed track and decided to redevelop the New Delhi Railway Station (NDLS) and Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) under a Hybrid Built Operate Transfer (BOT) model instead of a Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) model that was earlier planned. Vaishnaw said that this is being done to keep costs in check for passengers. See also: TBMs to begin working on Chennai Metro Phase II in OctPMC, MahaMetro hold review of DPR for Pune Metro Phase 2