E-Paper
Nod to leasing of railway land for Gati Shakti
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a policy for long-term leasing of railway land to implement the PM Gati Shakti programme
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a policy for long-term leasing of railway land to implement the PM Gati Shakti programme, which the government said will help set up 300 cargo terminals and generate 125,000 jobs.
The policy, according to Union minister Anurag Thakur said, will help provide land lease for a longer period of up to 35 years as against five years at present. It will be implemented in the next 90 days, he told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.
In a statement, the central government said with an employment generation potential of about 125,000 jobs, the policy will help bring more revenue to the Railways. The cargo terminals, it added, will be developed over a period of five years.
“300 PM Gati Shakti Cargo Terminals would be developed over the next five years and about 1.2 lakh employment would be generated,” the statement said.
“Liberalising the land leasing policy would open avenues for all stakeholders /service providers /operators to establish more cargo related facilities and render their participation assisting in generation of additional cargo traffic and freight revenues to Railways,” it said.
The new policy will enable the integrated development of infrastructure and more cargo terminals, the railways said in a statement. It has also cut down land lease fee from 6 percent to 1.5 percent, it added.
The railways also said that the policy will simplify approvals for utilities as envisaged in the PM Gati Shakti Programme.
It will help in development of public utilities like electricity, gas, water supply, telecom cable, sewage disposal, drains, optical fibre cables (OFC), pipelines, roads, flyovers, terminals, regional rail transport and urban transport in an integrated manner, the statement said.
