In a move that seemed inevitable over the past several months, the Ministry of Railways has, in principle, decided to shut down station redevelopment subsidiary Indian Railways Stations Development Corporation (IRSDC). The ministry has today directed the initiation of closure formalities.

The major policy shift could be a big setback to station redevelopment projects in the works across India. IRSDC has been asked to hand over all stations to respective zones. Redevelopment plans and documents also have to be handed back to the zones. Zones are to implement the projects going forward.

IRSDC had begun planning and RFQ/RFP processes for several major stations like Mumbai’s iconic Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, New Delhi station, Nagpur, Amritsar, Sabarmati, Gwalior among others. It is unclear what the fate of these projects will be going forward.

The move seemed inevitable after Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Advisor to GoI, recommended choosing between Railway Land Development Authority (RLDA) and IRSDC. According to the proposal, both agencies were involved in station redevelopment, management and other related works and thus had significant overlap. Activity at the SPV has been dwindling over the past several months with little information on the progress of RFPs floated.

For now, it is unclear how the RLDA will fit into the new scheme of things.

Station Redevelopment: Derailed with IRSDC?

The Railway Ministry’s decision to hand over redevelopment to zonal railways is likely to substantially delay or completely derail such big-ticket projects.

Zones have a poor record of project execution. Many zones have been unable to unclog bottlenecks in project execution, resulting in critical capacity enhancement works being delayed by years or even decades. The current state of most major railway stations is a good indicator of how limited bandwidth, lack of a cohesive vision and ambition affect passenger experiences.

A separate unit specializing in redevelopment, monetization and management of stations could have offloaded the task from zonal railways. The unit could have focussed on the building of modern, high quality and consistent station experiences for passengers.

After a few years of radical change and reform that unsettled the bureaucracy, Indian Railways appears to be reverting to the mean once more.