Cabinet approves policy on long-term leasing of railway land, 300 cargo terminals to be developed in 5 yrs

New Delhi [India], September 7 (ANI): The Union Cabinet led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday approved a policy on the long-term leasing of Railways' land to implement the PM Gati Shakti framework while also deciding to develop 300 cargo terminals in the next five years, Information and Broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur said on Wednesday.

The initiatives have the potential to generate over 1.2 lakh jobs, he said.

Addressing a briefing after the Cabinet meeting, Thakur said the Cabinet has approved the policy on long-term leasing of Railways' Land to implement PM Gati Shakti framework. The policy will be implemented in the next 90 days, he said.

According to an official statement, the new policy will help in attracting more cargo to railways, increase railways' modal share in freight transportation thereby reducing the logistics cost of the industry, and bring more revenue to railways. This will simplify approvals for utilities as envisaged in PM Gati Shakti Programme.

The policy will help in the development of public utilities like electricity, gas, water supply, telecom cable, sewage disposal, drains, optical fibre cables (OFC), pipelines, roads, flyovers, but terminals, regional rail transport, urban transport etc in an integrated manner, said in a statement.

The extant policy permits licensing of railway land for a short period of upto five years for any railway-related activity. Such a short-term license period does not attract any serious investors for creating multi-modal cargo hubs, the official statement said.

The government statement added that there would be no additional expenditure incurred. "Liberalizing 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 added.

Long-term leasing of railway land for upto 35 years is allowed for leasing government land mainly to Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), thereby limiting the scope of investments in cargo terminals, he added.

Since rail is an efficient mode of transport it is essential to more freight by rail so as to reduce the logistics cost of the industry. To enhance the modal share of rail in freight transportation need has been felt to modify the land leasing policy to encourage the development of more cargo terminals, it added.

Notably, PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan (PMGS-NMP) was launched on October 13, 2021, to provide multimodal connectivity infrastructure to various economic zones.

Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) accorded approval for implementing the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan on October 21, 2021.

PM Gati Shakti is a transformative approach to economic growth and sustainable development. The approach is driven by 7 engines: Railways, Roads, Ports, Waterways, Airports, Mass Transport, and Logistics Infrastructure. (ANI)

Source: National