Parliament on Monday approved a legislation to set up the Railway Land Development Authority 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 unanimously passed by the Rajya Sabha with certain amendments after a brief discussion.

Winding up the discussion, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad said the authority proposed to utilise 43 lakh hectare 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 Railways did not propose to sell the surplus land but only utilise it for commercial purposes.

Describing the move as "revolutionary," Lalu said the Railways expected to generate Rs 10,000 crore surplus income by the end of the year.

He announced that Railways would beautify railway stations in Delhi [Images], Mumbai [Images], Kolkata and Chennai.
To the members' demand for planting Jatropa trees along railway tracks 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.

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

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