Land with Railways
The total area of land under Railway network is 461487 hectare out of which 414240 hectare is under operational and allied use and 46333 hectare land is vacant. The vacant Railway land is mostly in the form of narrow strips along tracks, which is required for servicing and maintenance of track, bridges and other infrastructure. The vacant railway land is also utilized for execution of various infrastructural projects for meeting future growth needs of Railways and include projects like doubling/tripling and traffic facilities works, etc. The vacant land, which is not required by Railways for its immediate operational needs, is utilized in the interim period for commercial development through Rail Land Development Authority wherever feasible, in order to mobilize additional financial resources.
Indian Railways has already completed most of work related to digitisation of land record i.e. maintaining land data (details of acquisition/area/usages and land plans) in digital form. Indian Railways have also digitised details of vacant plots of land measuring more than one acre to chalk out the blue print for monetisation of its vacant land.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Manoj Sinha in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on 11.12.2015.
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AKS/MKV/MN/DK