Monday, August 22 2005 20:28 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Parliament today (Aug 22, 2005) approved a legislation to set up Railway Land Development Authority (RLDA) to commercially utilise the vast vacant railway land across the country.

The Railway (Amendment) Bill 2004, which had been cleared by the Lok Sabha earlier, was today unanimously passed by the Rajya Sabha with certain amendments after a brief discussion.

Winding up the discussion, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad said that the Authority proposed to utilise 43 lakh hectares of vacant land to generate additional income for providing better amenities and improving safety in the Railways.

Allaying fears of members, he made it clear that the Railways does not propose to sell the surplus land but only utilise it for commercial purposes.

Describing the move as 'revolutionary', Prasad said it the Railways expected to generate Rs 10,000 crore surplus incomes by the end of the year.

He announced that Railways would be beautifying the railway stations in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

To the members demand for planting Jatropa trees along the rail tracks in order to step up production of bio-diesel, Prasad said the railways had already planted 75 lakh Jatropa saplings and proposed to plant another 60 lakh this year.

He said some of the surplus land had been kept unused, as it was needed for railway expansion plans and cited the proposal to construct third railway track between Delhi- Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata exclusively for goods movement.