Friday, March 11, 2011

Utilization of Vacant Railway Land

Indian Railway network occupies a land area measuring about 10.65 lakh acres. Ninety per cent of this land is directly under railway tracks, years, workshops and allied infrastructure. The vacant land, measuring about 1.13 lakh acres is mostly in the form of a narrow strip along tracks which railways has been utilizing, or plan to utilize, for its expansion in the form of doubling, third line, quadrupling, gauge conversion, freight corridors, yard remodeling, traffic facility works, workshops, etc. and for servicing and maintenance of track and other infrastructure.

Railway also plans to utilize its vacant land, not required for its immediate operational use, for setting up of rail coach and component factories, loco component factories, wagon factories, coach rehabilitation and wagon repair workshops, multi-model logistic parks, auto hubs, cold storage and perishable cargo centres etc.

Vacant land not required by railway for its immediate future operational needs is also utilized for commercial development, wherever feasible, for the interim period, through a Statutory Authority namely Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA)

This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways, Shri Bharatsinh Solanki in written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.

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