Global railway companies have emerged the top contenders on
technical parameters for the country's first railway station
modernisation and operation project in New Delhi, the first of
private-public partnership schemes.

The railway companies on the eligible list include state-owned
Russian Railways, which operates 85,000 km of railways in that
country, the $25-billion Deutsche Bahn AG, a subsidiary of the
German National Railways, state-owned China Railways 18 Bureau
Group, and government-controlled Grandi Stazioni SPA, which runs 13
major railway stations in Italy.

All these international companies have tied up with local partners
to bid for the Rs 6,000-crore New Delhi railway station
modernisation project. The successful bidder will modernise
infrastructure at the passenger terminal, which handles 0.3 to 0.35
million passengers a day.

Traffic is expected to grow 4 per cent annually. The plan also
includes real estate development on about 86 hectares of land
comprising the railway station, offices, parking, public spaces and
commercial blocks.

The company will also operate the station for a stipulated time
period that will be fixed during the financial bidding.

The railways will select six companies on the basis of their scores
(based on a complex formula that includes years of experience, net
worth and turnover among other criteria) in the technical bid, after
which they will be called for a financial bid.

Deutsche Bahn AG, a German national railway company with over
200,000 employees, and an annual turnover of more than $25 billion
and serving two billion passengers, tied up with Indian Mumbai-based
realtor DB Realty Pvt Ltd. The consortium has emerged with the
highest score in the technical qualification.

The Grandi Stazioni SPA consortium has renovated Italy's 13 largest
railway stations and several major European railway stations.

China Railways 18 Bureau Group, which in third place, has also built
highways and rail projects in the UAE, Thailand and Sudan among
others.

Russian Railways has tied the knot with Delhi-based DS Construction,
which recently built the Delhi-Gurgaon highway. Russian Railways,
with its 165 subsidiaries and 1.2 million employees, handles nearly
80 per cent of Russia's transportation services and has executed
railway network projects in countries like Libya, China and Iran as
well as in central Europe.

For the railways the success of the New Delhi station project is
crucial since it has announced similar schemes for 22 other
stations, Patna, Secundarabad, Bangalore and Bhopal amongst them.

http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2008/aug/07delhi.htm

August 07, 2008 02:55 IST