The railway station at Faridabad in Haryana is among the two railway stations in Northern Railway, which has been chosen by the Union Railways Ministry to give it a face lift under the Station Rehabilitation Scheme.
The other such railway station in Northern Railway is Jammu Tawi.
Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Krishan Pal Gurjar on Wednesday said that the tenders to begin work on these two railway stations would be invited on February 9 so as to complete these projects at the earliest.
The Union Railways Ministry is preparing an ambitious scheme under the guidance of Railway Minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu to give a face lift to 400 major railway stations in the country. The identified railway stations would be developed on PPP mode with high global standards and design, said he.
The Union Minister said that these railway stations would offer facilities to the passengers at par with those of world-class railway stations. These facilities included digital sign boards, escalators and elevators, executive lounge and luggage, screen machines, hauling area for passengers, new type of roof and floor and free WiFi, said he.
He said that with a view to provide more facilities to the passengers, the Railway Board has prepared a Rs one lakh crore scheme to provide land available at the railway stations through PPP mode.
This s would be the biggest scheme to be launched on PPP mode under which 2200 acres of prime land would be given to private developers for a period of 45 years. As a result of the commercial use of the vacant land near the railway stations, world-class railway stations would be developed without taking any additional grant from Railways, he added.
Notably, Faridabad has also been included in the list of 100 cities to be developed as ‘smart cities’ under a Central Government project. Haryana Government has set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to ensure timely and efficient execution of plans for the development of smart city Faridabad.
The SPV will implement the smart city proposals prepared by Municipal Corporation, Faridabad under the Smart City Mission of the Centre.