Shapoorji Pallonji And L&T Submit Bids For New Delhi Station Redevelopment Project

Two real estate giants, Shapoorji Pallonji and Larsen and Toubro (L&T), have submitted bids for the Rs 5,000 crore project involving redevelopment of New Delhi station, ending years of speculation and uncertainty over the mega project.

Though Tata, ITD, NCC Limited, GMR Group along with S&T and L&T had shown interest in the project and participated in the pre-bid meeting.

Only two players were found to have submitted tender documents when bids were opened on 10 March.

Now the bids would be technically evaluated before opening of the financial bids.

The project would be awarded to the lowest bidder before 30 April this year, maintains RLDA, the agency responsible for executing the station redevelopment project.

After two unsuccesful attempts in 2001-02 and 2008-09, the Railways finally succeded in getting the flagship initiative on the track after Cabinet approval of the project.

Getting all due permission from the land owning agency, civic authorities and city government were major hurdles for the New Delhi station project and the tender was discharged in 2008-09. In 2001-02, it just did not get work sanction.

However, now we have all required permission from the competent authorities so we got positive response from the real estate indusry, said a senior railway official.

The mega project involves a twin dome-shaped facade to come up at New Delhi station, replacing the existing structure.

Once completed, it would be an iconic structure to be identified with the Capital city of India.

The project to be executed on Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) model has attracted interest from various national and international stakeholders and will be instrumental in augmenting the local economy, generating employment opportunities and boosting the tourism potential of Delhi-NCR.

The station redevelopment programme is a flagship programme of the government of India.

Rail Land Development Authority, a statutory authority under the Ministry of Railways, has been entrusted with the task of redevelopment of many iconic stations.

Showing the determination to change the skyline of the Capital, the Railways has to discard the earlier proposal of PPP model and opted to EPC, a guaranteed way of executing the project.

Though the Railways has to fund the redevelopment project from its own coffer, there are scope of earning additional revenue from commercial exploitation of real estate.

The New Delhi station handles 400 trains per day with about 450,000 footfalls daily.

New Delhi Railway Station is the terminal station for most of the rail routes going towards East and South. The station is connected to New Delhi-Mumbai Main Line, New Delhi-Chennai Main Line, Howrah-Gaya-Delhi Line, and Delhi-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Corridor.

The station serves as the main hub for the Rajdhani Express and is both the starting and ending point of the Shatabdi Express.

New Delhi Railway Station Redevelopment is the first project to be undertaken on the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) concept in Delhi-NCR.

The station will be redeveloped into a world-class station in line with global standards with dome-shaped terminal buildings with separate arrival and departure provisions.

The Multi-Modal Transport Hubs, 40-floor high-rise twin towers for hotels, shopping complex, parking lot and pedestrian boulevard are among the salient features of the proposed development.

Pedestrian movement, cycle tracks, green tracks and non-motorised vehicles have been integrated into the proposed development plan.

The station will be developed to ensure multi-modal transport integration and development. It is connected to the Indira Gandhi International Airport through the Airport Express Line Metro and with Delhi NCR via Yellow Line of Delhi Metro.