The Hindu Business Line : Railways must develop wasteland, says Assocham

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New Delhi Feb. 10 Industry chamber Assocham has said the Railways should suitably commercialise about 45,000 hectares of wasteland in its possession for real estate development and become a world-class institution.

The Chamber has also suggested that the Railways should undertake its modernisation drive through enhanced safety measures in place and double its short-distance fares from 25 paise per km to 50 paise for the purpose.

In a pre-Budget representation submitted to the Railway Minister, Mr Lalu Prasad, the Chamber said these measures would help the Railways enhance revenues and profitability and execute its modernisation programme without seeking much Budgetary support or fiscal assistance from overseas multilateral agencies.

Fiscal concessions

The Railways should incorporate provisions with sufficient fiscal concessions to lure real estate promoters to set up motels, logging houses and pizza huts.

The Chamber is of the view that Indian Railway Finance Corporation Ltd should be empowered to increase its corpus size from higher Finance Ministry allocation and issue letters of intent seeking public-private partnership to commercially utilise the land tracts.

It should extend long-term loans to real estate developers and hoteliers at concessional interest rates for development of its land, with debt-equity ratio decided by it.

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Railways must develop wasteland, says Assocham