The stations will also have hotels, multilevel parking, separate entry and exit levels as the railways looks to leverage its prime real estate in and around these stations, mostly in the heart of cities.
“The Cabinet has approved the redevelopment of railway stations. Four hundred railway stations are to be redeveloped using the Swiss Challenge method,” finance minister Arun Jaitley said.
The decision will encourage innovative ideas from interested parties at no cost to the railways.
Under the Swiss Challenge method, open bids are invited from interested parties. Once someone submits a bid, another party can give suggestions to improve and beat that proposal. An expert committee will accept the best proposal and the original proposer will get a chance to accept it if it is an improvement on his proposal. In case the original proposer is not able to match the competing counterproposal, the project is awarded to the counter-proposer. This system has been used by several state governments.
“E-bidding process leaves no discretion, it will be a very transparent method. All bids will be done only through web-based bidding process, it will see evaluation by independent experts. Budget announcement fulfilled,” Railway minister Suresh Prabhu said.
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