OREANDA-NEWS. September 07, 2012. Rail Land Development Authority, a statutory authority established by Ministry of Railways for generating non-tariff revenue from railway land, today announced that it is soon going to restart offering sites for development of Multi Functional Complexes and railway land for commercial development. RLDA has now targeted for earning more than Rs. 400 crore during current financial year.

RLDA has prepared an action plan for fast tracking the development of projects and realization of expected revenues. RLDA has lined up 60 more new MFC sites and 8 other standalone sites for which bidding process is being initiated in phases within a fortnight. Many real estate consultants like Knight Frank, IL&FS, PWC, E&Y and JLLM are advising RLDA in Planning and Marketing the MFC/Commercial sites. MFC buildings, which are likely to come at railway stations in important tourist and religious destinations across India, will provide facilities for rail users at one centralized complex within the station premises. Facilities such as shopping, food stalls/ restaurants, book stalls, ATMs, medicines and variety stores, budget hotels, parking etc are to be provided. Several leading brands, retail, hotel chains and developers have expressed their interest in MFCs being developed by RLDA and prominent among them are Pantaloon, Cafe Coffee Day, The Loot, Woodland, Apodis Hospitality, Krishnan Palace Residency, WH Smith (Travel News Services). MFCs at 26 railway stations developed jointly with IRCON ISL  and RITES have already been completed and  are waiting for being leased out, prominent places being  Haridwar, Udaipur, Raipur, Madurai, Allahabad, Jabalpur, Burdwan, Manmad, Guntur. 

There was tremendous response when last bidding was carried oput by RLDA for 6 MFCs in year 2010-11 when a total of 15 bidders submitted 28 financial bids with RLDA getting offers much higher than their assessments. Multi Functional Complex project offers a unique opportunity for retailers, hotel chain operators, developers and other such stakeholders for expanding and enlarging their footprint across hundreds of important towns and cities in the country. The selected railway stations will provide assured footfalls and wide exposure in the heart of town/ city. Carefully selected railway land generally in the range of 1,000 Sq.m. to 3,000 Sq.m. at the station with passenger interface is identified for development of MFC. Bids are invited in a combination of one time Lease Premium and Annual Lease Rent and bidder offering highest present value of all payments at a discount rate of 15% is selected. A bidder can either bid individually for separate MFCs or can bid for a cluster of MFCs together so that they have chance of winning a group of sites in one go. The developer winning the bid would get railway land on 45 years lease and shall have to develop phase-I of the MFC of a minimum built up area of 200 Sq.m. within a short period of 9 months. Multi Functional Complex is a win-win model for Indian Railways, rail users and developers. Indian Railways get passenger facilities developed at no cost to Government and further gets additional present and future revenues, rail users get better facilities in the shortest period of time and developers get assured market and opportunity for developing such project at large number of railway stations across India. The MFCs so developed will be part of the railway operational buildings and will be transferred back to the railways once the lease period ends. 

Several important sites for commercial development of surplus railway land including Katra, Amritsar, Chennai, Vizag, Vijayawada and Bangalore are also soon going to be offered for bidding for leasing up-to 45 years. These sites are attractively located in the respective cities and are suitable for shopping malls, entertainment, offices, hotels and other such real estate developments. Several of these sites are expected to be awarded during this financial year.

RLDA has also been entrusted by Ministry of Railways for development of 5 Railway Stations at Chandigarh, Anand Vihar (Delhi), Bijwasan (Delhi), Habibganj (Bhopal) and Shivajinagar (Pune) into modern railway stations with excellent facilities for rail users. These stations are being developed through Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Ltd., a joint venture company created by IRCON and RLDA in which the former is the majority partner. The company has already started operation and Business and Legal advisers have been appointed. These stations will be developed by leveraging the real estate and retail potential at the railway stations.