The Union cabinet on Wednesday under the PM Gati Shakti programme, gave its nod to amend the railway land policy. The changes indicate that the land lease fee will be cut down to 1.5 per cent from the current 6 per cent. The permitted lease period will be increased to 35 years instead of the current rule of five years.
Officials said this will help facilitate integrated development of infrastructure, including 300 cargo terminals, and generate 1.25 lakh jobs. This will further bring additional revenue to the railways.
As per a statement released by the Centre, the new changes will help attract more cargo to railways, increase railways’ modal share in freight transportation, thereby reducing logistics cost of the industry. Liberalising the land leasing policy would open avenues for all stakeholders / service providers / operators to establish more cargo-related facilities, officials said.
Additionally, the policy will also enable use of railway land at nominal cost for setting up of solar plants on railway land. The statement added that the policy also encourages development of social infrastructure (such as hospitals through public-private partnership and schools through Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan) on railway land at a nominal annual fee of Re 1 per sq m per annum.
Officials said the development is believed to be in line with NITI Aayog’s recommendation to keep railway land leasing fee below three per cent for containers.
