Railways planning to set up commercial activities at stations to generate revenue

If the Indian railway has its way, the old, dilapidated station buildings will soon give way to swanky high-rises.
For the railways, the exercise is a means of revenue generation but lakhs of passengers will be the ultimate beneficiaries as the plan will enable them to find hotels, restaurants, shopping arcades and movie theatres at a go. Tapping its biggest resource to strengthen its finances, the Indian railway is planning to raise multi-storey buildings on unused land and lease them out to private firms. In 2015-16, the railways had posted a deficit of over Rs 32,000 crore and the initiative aims at increasing revenue generation by commercially exploiting its resources.
The Railway Land Development Authority (RLDA) has been entrusted with the task to carry out studies on commercially viable railway properties and prepare the commercial development plan accordingly.
To begin with, railway stations in Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kanpur, Gwalior, Ajmer and other cities are being surveyed. Officials said the buildings will be raised vertically but the actual height will be subject to clearance from local civic bodies.
In Delhi, railways has planned the overhaul of Anand Vihar terminal and Sarai Rohilla station while Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminal (CST), Dadar, Lokmanya Tilak Terminal (LTT), Bandra Andheri, Borivali stations in Mumbai will be developed commercially.
Senior officials said while this will improve the financial health of railways, it will also give a facelift to the railway stations. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has already given nod for development of 400 stations in India on PPP model. Officials said as suggested by RLDA, these stations will be developed accordingly. The approximate cost of developing each station on PPP model will be around Rs 100 crore.
In another move, the railways have also paved the way for installing huge digital signboards across 2,000 busy stations in the country to display commercial advertisements.
Official claimed that railway properties located at prime locations will attract private firms to start commercial activities. Also, stations like New Delhi, Mumbai CST, Lucknow and Kanpur witness a daily footfall of nearly 5 lakh passengers.
"Indian Railways has approximately 43,000 hectares of vacant land. A major chunk of it is the land which is not required for operational purposes in near future. Different zonal railways will identify such land and report the same to Railway Board. Such land will thereafter be entrusted to RLDA in phases for commercial development," a senior Indian railway official told Mail Today.
As part of Anand Vihar redevelopment plan, railways will remodel the station building on the lines of airport. The station building will be separate arrival and departure decks while there will be ample space for a hotel, restaurants, coffee shops, multiplex, retail outlets and offices. Business of all sorts will be accommodated at the station building. Similarly, the RLDA is conducting a study at Sarai Rohilla railway station which caters to trains bound to states like Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan.
"The redevelopment plan of Anand Vihar is in advanced stage; bids for it will be invited soon. The upcoming railway station at Bijwasan will have ample scope for commercial development," said Arun Arora, Divisional Rail Manager (DRM), Delhi. "Restaurants, shopping areas and food plazas would be developed at major stations to help the railways generate more revenue from its premises," he said.
For the railways, commercial exploitation of properties is the most viable alternative as increasing passenger fares and freight charges remain a challenge. After implementation of the 7th pay commission, railways' expense on salary and pension has gone up by Rs 22,000 crore and thus adding to the deficit. In January, Finance Ministry had also refused to grant monetary assistance to the railways.

True Story: In China, women are trying to cover their knees with an iPhone to prove they have slender legs

China's new body fad is making us think, and re-think, people's sanity. Women hiding their knees behind an iPhone to prove a point is the recent trend that's going viral!

China seems to be the hub of bizarre trends! Not too long ago, there was the crazy A4 Size Waist Challenge--wherein women held an A4 size of paper in front of their midriff to prove to the world that they have a 'tiny' midriff.

Now, it's the iPhone 6 Legs Challenge, which requires women to cover their knees with an iPhone 6. Here are some proofs of the regressive madness:  This new body challenge is not only unhealthy, but also disturbing, as it shows Chinese women's obsession with bizarre body trends to prove that they have the ideal figure.  With these new fads on the block, trends like thigh gap and thigh brows are things of the past!  While many are uploading pictures of their phone-covered knees, some sensible ones are looking at this as yet another body shaming trend.  So, how did it all start? According to Today, photos were recently posted on Weibo, a Chinese micro-blogging site, and shortly after, the challenge spread like wildfire. (Weibo is also believed to have been the platform where the A4 Waist Challenge started.)  At the time of writing this article, iPhone6 legs had nearly 84 million viewers and 72,000 comments on Weibo. We wonder what body part challenge is next!

Kolkata flyover tragedy: ICC World Twenty20 finalists to wear black armbands

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly, who is also the president of Cricket Association of Bengal, has requested the ICC World Twenty20 finalists to wear black armbands as a mark of respect to the victims of Kolkata flyover tragedy.

Both men and women's teams of West Indies, England men and Australia women who will be playing the final matches of the ICC World Twenty20 in Kolkata tomorrow are expected to wear black armbands as mark of respect to the victims of the flyover tragedy that took away lives of 24 people in the city.
"We have requested the teams to wear black armbands," former India captain and Cricket Association of Bengal president Sourav Ganguly said on Friday.

Till now 24 people have been killed and several others critically injured after an under construction flyover collapse in northern part of the city.
With the final having awarded to the Eden during the tenure of Jagmohan Dalmiya as BCCI president, the CAB in a novel gesture will show a five-minute documentary on the administrator who passed away last year.
There will also be a cultural program with tabla performance by Bickram Ghosh, dancer Tanushree Shankar and sitar performance by the duo of Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan.
\West Indies will be eyeing a double with the women's team taking on Australia while the men will face English challenge in the evening.

Did Pratyusha Banerjee commit suicide due to recent events?

She was just 24 and already a star.
Television actress Pratyusha Banerjee, who committed suicide in Mumbai today, had everything going for her. She was a household name thanks to her role as Anandi in Balika Vadhu; a role she assumed when the show took a time leap paving the way for the exit of the original Anandi, played by Avika Gor.
Though that was to remain her biggest role yet-according to a report she quit the show after three years, thanks to her mother's ill health and health issues of her own--she has since then done several other shows such as Sasural Simar Ka in which she played a 'daayan' and Hum Hain Na. She also participated in Bigg Boss season 7, but didn't manage to stick on too long. She was supposed to enter TV show Adhuri Kahaani Humari as a naagin.
Late last year, she and her beau Rahul Raj Singh entered Sony TV's reality show Power Couple, but were evicted pretty early on. Before leaving the show, Pratyusha confirmed that the duo have decided to tie the knot and the wedding cards will be out soon.
In January 2016, however, Pratyusha ran into a spot of trouble when she approached the Mumbai Police alleging that four persons, whom she claimed posed as policemen, molested her at her residence in suburban Kandivali in Mumbai. The actress claimed in her complaint that the men barged into her flat in Laljipada and left the place only after she threatened to approach the Kandivali police.
However, a police officer denied the allegation. According to the officer, Rahul had allegedly manhandled a loan recovery agent, Amit Dalvi, when the latter had gone to collect the installment of a car loan from him at her house on December 31.
It is unclear as to what led the actress to take such a drastic step, but it seems her relationship with Rahul had run into some trouble. Whatever the reason, it is a life gone too soon.

Kolkata flyover collapse: Construction company's 3 officials arrested, 25 dead

A day after an under-construction flyover collapsed in Kolkata leaving at least 25 dead, the police last night arrested three top officials of a Hyderabad-based company IVRCL which was building the flyover and slapped murder charges on them.
Earlier the police had detained 10 officials of the construction company's Kolkata office for questioning and later arrested three of them, a senior Kolkata Police officer said.
The three - Assistant General Manager Mallikaarjun, Assistant Manager Debjyoti Manjumdar and Structure Manager Pradip Kumar Saha - were arrested under IPC sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) and others.
They will be produced before a court tomorrow. Seven other officials of the company are still detained, the officer said, adding that a team of Kolkata Police has left for Hyderabad to meet IVRCL top bosses.
Police had registered a case against the construction firm under sections 304, 308 and 407 of the IPC and sealed its local office.
The state government also suspended a chief engineer and an executive engineer of the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority who were involved in the construction of the flyover pending completion of the probe which the government ordered yesterday.
It also ordered immediate inspection of the remaining portion of the flyover to ascertain its stability and safety, an official release said. About a 60-metre-long stretch of the 2.2 km flyover under construction crashed down yesterday afternoon on a congested road intersection.
Forensic experts visited the site and collected samples of materials used for the construction for examination.
A day after an official of IVRCL dubbed the flyover collapse as an "act of God", IVRCL's legal team head P Sita said, "It is an accident". She also did not rule out sabotage and referred to a media report which said there could have been a bomb blast.
"An act of God was just an expression only to describe that it is under no one's control," she said in Hyderabad.
Ruling out use of substandard materials, Sita said, "100 per cent no issues with regard to quality. It is the same material, as was used to construct the 59 sections earlier with approval, with which the 60th section (which collapsed) was built. Unfortunately it collapsed."
"Why did this happen? We are anxious to know the reasons. We are surprised and extremely shocked. We are there to cooperate with the investigation, but investigation takes time," she said.
Showing a photograph of the collapse site published in a newspaper, she said, "It looked like a site of bomb blast. There are various aspects which should be looked into."
The state government requested 62 families in neighbouring houses to vacate their premises temporarily to enable safe removal of the collapsed span.
Following rescue operation throughout the night by the Army, NDRF, Kolkata Police, disaster management team and fire fighters, the toll rose to 24 with the recovery of three more bodies from underneath the debris of concrete and iron girdles, a police officer said. The number of injured, he said, was close to 90.
Meanwhile, the incident triggered a blame game between the ruling party and the Opposition ahead of the Assembly election which commences on April 4.
Union Minister MA Naqvi accused the state government of "criminal negligence" in relief work.
Demanding a CBI probe into the collapse, he also alleged that the Mamata Banerjee government was engaged in a "competition on corruption" with the previous Left Front government resulting in the flyover collapse.
TMC national spokesperson Derek O' Brien termed Naqvi's statements as "cheap politics" during the election season.
"Just saw a BJP Minister's statement. Reeks of cheap politics in election season. Army came at state's request. Army belongs to nation, not the BJP," Brien said.
Accusing the erstwhile Left Front regime of making a "faulty plan" for building the flyover, TMC MP Sudip Bandopadhyay said there were complaints from locals about its planning but at that time 60 per cent work was done."
WBPCC president Adhir Chowdhury said if the plans were faulty, then why didn't the TMC government change it.
Asked why the contractor of the flyover was not changed if the design was faulty, state PWD minister Firhad Hakim said, "This is not time to do politics. Once a tender has been given to someone, it is tough to take it back."

India furious as China blocks UN blacklisting of Masood Azhar..

China has put a hold on India's request to add the head of the Pakistani militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad to the United Nations' al Qaeda-Islamic State blacklist, UN diplomats said on Friday, eliciting an angry reaction from the Indian government.
India accused Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar of masterminding a fatal attack on the Pathankot air base in India in January. India had requested that its leader be added to a UN Security Council blacklist of groups linked to al Qaeda or Islamic State, the diplomats said, but China objected.
The Kashmir-based group Jaish-e-Mohammad has already been blacklisted by the 15-nation Security Council, but not its leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, an Islamist hardliner and long-time foe of India.
"We find it incomprehensible that while the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad was listed... as far back as 2001 for its well-known terror activities and links to al Qaeda, the designation of the group's main leader, financier and motivator, has been put on a technical hold," Indian government spokesman Vikas Swarup said in Washington.
"This does not reflect well on the determination that the international community needs to display to decisively defeat the menace of terrorism," he told reporters on the sidelines of a nuclear summit in the US capital.
It was not immediately clear why China requested that a hold be placed on the Indian request to blacklist Masood Azhar. Technical holds can be lifted and often arise when a Security Council member wants more information. But sometimes they lead to a permanent blocking of a proposed blacklisting.
Asked about China's decision to place a technical hold on the proposed blacklisting of Masood Azhar, Chinese UN Ambassador Liu Jieyi offered no details.
"Any listing would have to meet the requirements" for blacklisting, he said. Pakistani security officials have said that a special investigation team set up in Pakistan to probe the Pathankot attack found no evidence implicating Masood Azhar.
If Masood Azhar was blacklisted by the UN Security Council, he would face a global travel ban and asset freeze.
The January 2 attack at Pathankot was followed by a raid on an Indian consulate in Afghanistan that has also been linked to Jaish-e-Mohammad, or the Army of Mohammad.
Jaish-e-Mohammad militants are blamed for a 2001 attack on India's parliament that nearly led to a war between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Rail Budget 2016: 8 things every traveller must take note of.

Indian Railways is known globally for having one of the strongest railway networks in the world. Quite naturally, a large chunk of those travelling across the country consider trains as one of the key modes of transport.
The much-awaited railway budget was presented by Union Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday. Let's take a quick look at a few highlights from this budget that every traveller should know.

1. WiFi services will be available in 100 stations this year, and the service will be expanded to 400 more over the next two years. This will keep travellers well-connected at all times, and help them beat boredom.
2. The walls of many station across the country are being painted with murals. This will make the railway stations tourist attractions in themselves. Besides, it will give travellers a glimpse into the local attractions and a peek into the cultural richness of the particular region.
3. Railway stations of pilgrimage destinations will be beautified. While Puri will be the first, other places included in this project are Ajmer, Dwarka, Gaya, Varanasi, Haridwar and Parasnath, among others.
4. IRCTC will soon offer a wide variety of food choices that will include local cuisines as well. E-catering will be expanded from 40 stations to 408 stations. In order to make train journeys hassle-free for mothers, a children's menu and baby food will be on offer.
5. FM stations are expected to provide in-train entertainment via PA systems.
6. Tejas, the new train with an operating speed of 130kmph and world-class on board services, will make train journeys more interesting.
7. Booking tickets will become quicker and more hassle-free, as the capacity of the e-ticketing system has been enhanced from 2,000 tickets per minute to 7,200 per minute.
8. Travellers will be able to explore a lot of new destinations as the north-eastern states of Mizoram and Tripura will soon be connected via a broad-gauge railway network.