The ambitious Rs 12,000-crore New Delhi railway station modernisation project, the first of such scale and magnitude in the country, has run into fresh obstacles with two civic bodies — the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) and Delhi Development Authority (DDA) — and the Delhi Traffic Police raising a red flag to the development plan chalked out by the ministry of railways. According to a railways official, the three bodies have claimed that the commercial development of railway land in and around the station will make the traffic situation in Connaught Place ‘unmanageable’. They have, hence, suggested that the Indian Railways restrict the plan to simply constructing a modern station and leave out any additional facilities for passengers or real estate development.

“Even though the three agencies along with the union urban development ministry had first supported the proposal presented to all last March, they took an about turn later in the year,” the official told The Indian Express. “The civic authorities have asked us for one year more to study traffic patterns in the Connaught Place area before they give the go-ahead,” the official said. Owing to confusion over the conflict of interest clause in the request for qualification (RFQ) document, the project has already been delayed by over six months. The Centre had decided to re-tender the project in October 2008 and had set a January 20, 2009 deadline for fresh bids. It had, however, recently extended the deadline by a month.

The modernisation plan entailed a government spending of Rs 7,000 crore for the development of the station and another Rs 5,000 crore through private investment under the public-private-partnership (PPP) mode. Private investment was being invited for development of restaurants, mini-malls, budget hotels for passengers. “In fact the ministry of urban development had increased the floor area ratio (FAR) for the development of the station in support of the project last year,” the official said.

... contd.