The cash-strapped India Railways is looking at land monetisation with renewed vigour. It has set ambitious targets for the under-performing Railway Land Development Authority (RLDA) after suitably empowering it to identify the transporter’s vacant land prone to commercial exploitation. While since its start in 2007 RLDA has generated just over R200 crore by putting rail land into commercial use, it will target R1,000 crore revenue in FY17 and over R19,000 crore over the next five years, according to official sources.
Ending the practice of the Railway Board “allocating” land to RLDA, the transporter’s entire vacant land — estimated at a massive 47,336 hectares — will now be available for the authority to select and commercially exploit.