NBCC to redevelop 10 stations across the country

STATE-run real estate company National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) has picked up 10 railway stations for revamp at an estimated cost of Rs 5,000 crore.
This will give a boost Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu’s bid to develop 100 world class stations across the country.
“We’ll be redeveloping 10 stations and the monetisation would be done through commercial exploitation of the land that railway provides,” said Anoop Kumar Mittal, chairman at National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) told...
a leading daily.
The Navratna PSU has identified are Varanasi, Jaipur, Kota, Sarai Rohilla (Delhi), Thane, Margao (Goa), Bhubaneswar, Lucknow, Tirupati and Puducherry. NBCC will construct commercial and residential spaces on the station land earmarked for development.
The minimum investment required for redeveloping 10 stations would be Rs 5,000 crore. NBCC is a profit-making central PSU that has zero debt on its books. The government recently sold 15 per cent stake in the company. Minister Prabhu earlier said that various PSUs apart from private companies were also willing to invest in redevelopment of stations.
Bhattacharya said NBCC must be targeting to make at least two times of its total investment. The PSU successfully implemented a similar model of redevelopment in Delhi’s New Moti Bagh (Chanakyapuri) where housing for top bureaucrats (rank of joint secretary and above) was developed at the cost of Rs 1,700 crore after selling a small piece of the land to Leela Palace Hotels.
NBCC is working on the same model for redevelopment of other government-owned colonies in Delhi.
Earlier, the ministry of urban development on October 25 signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with NBCC and Central Public Works Department (CPWD) for redevelopment of seven general pool residential accommodation (GPRA) colonies in the national capital. While NBCC will redevelop Sarojini Nagar, Netaji Nagar, Nauroji Nagar, CPWD will redevelop Kasturba Nagar, Thyagraj Nagar, Srinivaspuri and Mohammadpur.
Around 12,970 existing homes is planned to be replaced by 25,667 dwelling units, with supporting social infrastructure facilities in the next five years, in a phased manner.
"It is a path breaking initiative and MoUD along with NBCC and CPWD will be redeveloping the seven GPRA colonies," said Rajiv Gauba, secretary, ministry of urban development.
The project, with an estimated cost of Rs 32,835 crores including maintenance and operation costs for 30 years, will be implemented on self-financing basis by sale of commercial built up area of 8.07 lakh square metre constructed in Nauroji Nagar and parts of Sarojini Nagar by NBCC as a part of the project.
The government is developing a similar Rs 5,298-crore GPRA project in East Kidwai Nagar, with the project scheduled to be completed by December 2018.