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• In a move to give a facelift to stations, railways will set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to modernize stations across the country by equipping them with modern facilities, including easy access to platforms, congestion-free platforms, modern catering facilities, hotels, shopping plaza among other amenities.
• On Wednesday, Ircon International Limited and Rail Land Development Authority, both subsidiaries of railways, signed an MoU to form Railway Stations Development Corporation with seed money of Rs 100 crore for commercial exploitation of stations across the country.
• The proposed SPV will take up provision of world-class amenities in a cost neutral manner by utilizing the real estate potential of the land and air space in the stations.
• "The corporation will explore ways to convert stations into world class ones with market complex, library, restaurants and other facilities," railway minister Dinesh Trivedi said on the occasion.
• Trivedi said stations should look like modern airports and they have to be customer oriented with more facilities for passengers including easy access to platforms and other amenities. "We will begin with stations in metropolitan cities and later on more stations will be taken up for development," he said.
• "There are huge opportunities for revenue generation from stations as they are gold mines," he added.
• The minister, however, emphasized that all property and assets around stations will remain with the railways and there was no question of privatization.
• The corporation will also take up work of station maintenance across the country in a dedicated manner as a part of the continuous process of augmenting and improving amenities.
• There are about 8,000 railway stations across the country.

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