Cash-strapped Railways to start bidding process for its land assets from Monday

In a bid to open another revenue stream for railways, Rail Land Development Authority, or RLDA, has kicked off the process to monetise railways' land assets.

Indian Railways is India's second-largest land user and vacant land parcels, which could be used for commercial purposes to generate revenue.

According to a report in the Economic Times, theRailways owns 4.31 lakh hectares, second only to the defence ministry which has seven lakh hectares around the country, but 90% of its land is used for its operational infrastructure like tracks, signals and depots. Of the 43,000 hectares of nontrack land, the Railways had transferred 136 land parcels over 1500 hectares to the RLDA.

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Most of these properties are not required by the railways for operational purposes in the near future.

The Rail Land Development Authority has appointed two real estate consultancies - KnightFrank India and Jones Lang LaSalle -to identify the sites around those areas. They will also manage the collaterals and seek the expression of interest from end users, CNBC-TV18 reported today.

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While KnightF rank India is in charge of 53 locations across the South and West, Jones Lang LaSalle will look into the eastern and the northern region.

The first round of bids will start from Gujarat on September 9, followed by Hyderabad on September 11.

According to the CNBC-TV18 report, hoteliers like Fedelco, Suba International, Woodland, The Loot, Jumbo Kinghave shown interest in developing these land parcels.