Bullet train: Rly firm to hold 'chai pe charcha' with PAPS

MUMBAI: The National High Speed Rail Corporation, which is building a bullet train corridor between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, will hold what the company called "chai pe charcha" with project-affected persons (PAPS) to solve issues.

The "chai pe charcha", literally conversations over tea, was a concept started by the BJP as a campaign tool in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2014.

NHSRCL officials said that they plan to start these round of talks with PAPS in May.

"We want cordial relations with and support from the people who will be affected by this gigantic project.

Therefore, our officials will hold meeting with PAPS at public places and, over tea, discuss facts about the project," said Dhananjay Kumar, spokesperson of the NHSRCL.

He said that these talks were meant to sensitise the people about the project, and in turn, make land acquisition for the project easier for the firm and acceptable to the PAPS.

Kumar admitted that officials had failed to properly communicate with farmers and villagers about the project.

"This 'chai pe charcha' will win their confidence and help us get them emotionally involved in it," he said.

The official informed that the company had got the cellphone numbers of 2,000 PAPS to whom it would send bulk messages, in local languages, explaining the importance of the project. NHSRCL requires 1,400 hectares of land, including those that fall in forest areas, to build the corridor in Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The deadline for acquisition of land is December 2018 and work on it had begun in both states, the official said.

The company has provisioned an extra 25 per cent monetary incentive for those who will hand over their land voluntarily.

Kumar said that proposals for clearances required to acquire forest land had been submitted to the respective state governments and these were under consideration.

He said that all decisions about the project would be taken collectively by the three main stakeholders, the Union government and the Maharashtra and Gujarat governments.

"We want to start civil works by the end of the this year," the official said. NEW DELHI: The Surat railway station will be the third in the country and the second in Gujarat after Gandhinagar to be developed as a world class facility under a Railway Ministry station redevelopment programme, officials said.

The station will be equipped with several "airport-like" amenities under the ministry's 'Rs 1 lakh crore station redevelopment' programme, they said.

SITCO, a joint venture between the IRSDC, the Surat Municipal Corporation and the Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation, has invited request for qualification (RFQ) and request for proposal (RFP) for the development of a multimodal transportation hub at the station, the officials said.

The hub will be built at a cost of around Rs 5,000 crore and is expected to be ready by 2020, they said.

"It is an unique project, in which three levels of government have come together to redevelop the station. The Centre, the state as well as the urban local body will pool land together, which is a first. The construction will start this year," IRSDC Managing Director S K Lohia said.

The total land area of the station will be 3,19,700 sqm and the built up area 57,739 sqm with the size of the concourse at 9,825 sqm. The area under commercial development would be around 5,07,054 sqm.

The station would be a multi-modal transport hub with a bus terminal having a built-up area of 40,724 sqm, Lohia said.

It will also have five road under-bridges and a parking space for 900 vehicles. It is expected to cater to around 3,49,684 passengers every day, the official said. NEW DELHI: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and including Rahul Gandhi, will visit border areas in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh next month to take stock of the situation following the Doklam crisis with China, sources said.

The panel has been looking into various aspects of the India-china military standoff at Doklam and has been briefed several times on the issue by the former and current Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale.

The panel will visit the border areas in two states Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh to see the ground realities and take stock of the situation on border in these two states, a source said.

The idea is to get a firsthand experience of the situation on the India-china border in the two states and to see, or if possible visit, areas where incursions have happened, another source said.

The panel, which may also use a chopper to get an aerial view, could also interact with top security and defense officials deployed there, sources said.

Troops of India and China were locked in a 73-day standoff in Doklam in the Sikkim sector from June 16 last year after the Indian side stopped the building of a road in the disputed tri-junction by the Chinese Army.

Bhutan and China have a dispute over Doklam.

Earlier, foreign ministry officials had informed the 31-member parliamentary panel that Bhutan was firmly with India on the issue.