Railways to focus on land, station issues more

New Delhi, Oct. 22: The railway ministry has decided to give more powers to its two nodal bodies to redevelop stations and its land, a senior official said.

The two bodies — Railway Land Development Authority and Indian Railways Station Development Corporation — are set to get powers to deal with all big decisions on the commercial use of railway land and developing stations, the official said.

The ministry has also formed a high-powered committee which will give recommendations on ways to further strengthen the bodies which will, in turn, speed up the execution of projects.

“The issue of exploiting railway land for commercial use is being looked into afresh and the organisation handling this subject — RLDA — is being further strengthened and empowered to take care of this work effectively, especially big land parcels,” railway board chairman, Ashwani Lohani, said.

“Similarly, in the case of Station Redevelopment Programme we have decided to expedite their operations by strengthening the IRSDC further,” Mr Lohani said.The decisions have been taken based on directions issued by railway minister Piyush Goyal.

The minister in his meetings with board members that no department can work in silos and empowering them should be the goal to deliver work faster, an official said.