Minister for Railways Suresh Prabhu has announced that the Government is working on a scheme to develop 500 railway stations across the country with local tourism potential under the Public-private partnership (PPP) mode.
“We are looking at methods and means to monetise the huge railway property and make effective use of land for raising finances to offer better travel experience to the passengers,” Prabhu said, while speaking during fire-side chat at the AGM of Indian Merchants Chamber (IMC) on Thursday.
Prabhu said that world-class stations were being developed at Gandhinagar, Surat and Habibganj (Bhopal).
Elaborating on the PPP mode to develop 500 railway stations, Prabhu said,”Raising revenue for the railways from freight and fare is no longer a good business model”.
Alluding to the subject of the chat “Enhancing India’s Competitiveness in a Rapidly Changing World”, Prabhu said that even though robotics and artificial intelligence were gaining more ground, the need to have a human touch could not be undermined.
Speaking at another function here, Prabhu said that India was all set to become a game changer in the world in near future due to new initiatives such as “Make in India Campaign”, “Swachchh
Bharat Abhiyan” and the introduction of GST among others undertaken by the BJP-led Government at the Centre.
“The GDP is growing in the current economic scenario but the contribution of manufacturing sector was not significant. Nearly two-third ofd of GDP is generated from the services sector and this is where India needs to change in order to increase the contribution of manufacturing sector in GDP growth of the country,” Prabhu said.
“Corporate houses can change everything but the problem is that private investment in civil sector is not increasing. However, private sector also has its own limitations,” the minister said, while delivering the 13th Dr DR Gadgil Memorial lecture on ‘India’s transition into a new economic order’ organised here by Maharashtra Economic Development Council (MEDC).
“We have observed that the co-operative sector can bring about a change in the country’s economy and not just the private sector as we have seen in the last few years”, Prabhu said.
Eulogising the late Dr Gadgil’s contribution to the cooperative sector, Prabhu said that the single largest contribution to country’s economy was his role in the establishment of sugar co-operative factories in Maharashtra.
Maintaining that it would be a befitting tribute to late Gadgil if the co-operative sector received a boost in the country’s economy, Prabhu said, “Not only farmers but each and every citizen should benefit from agriculture as more than half the population depends on agriculture for source of livelihood. Partnership between co-operatives and corporate houses can bring about a great change as it will come as a huge support to the Indian economy”.
The Minister said that farmers should be the focus of growth in India. “If income of farmers rises, the economy would grow further and become sustainable. We have to improve the financial health of farmers. Unfortunately today, farmers are not well off and they are not getting sufficient returns for their produce,” Prabhu said.