visakhapatnam nearly 19000 square metres of vacant land available with the visakhapatnam railway station will be commercially exploited to give a facelift to the premier station the estimated project cost is rs 200 crore this was officially announced on wednesday at the launching of phase1 of railway station redevelopment programme by the union railway ministry railway minister suresh prabhu formally announced it through a videoconference with the heads of select railway stations including vizag from new delhi in the presence of the mediawe initially selected about 400 stations across the country including vizag for redevelopment in the first phase we will redevelop 23 major railway stations we expect rs 1 lakh crore investments for commercial exploitation of the railways 2200 acres of prime real estate land at all 400 railway stations for a period of 45 years suresh prabhu saidwhile talking about vizag station waltair divisional railway manager chandralekha mukherjee said the 19000 square metres of vacant land comprises two parcels one is 15400 square meters and second one is 3600 square metres the available land is encroachment free and land titles are available with the railwaysthe revenue generated from commercial exploitation of the vacant land will be used to develop the vizag station into a worldclass one the surplus generated will be used to fund modernisation of satellite railway stations railways will not require additional funding for development of the station mukherjee saidthe invitation document was issued on february 8 and the last date of submission is may 24chandralekha mukherjee during an interaction with gvmc commissioner m hari narayanan prior to the videoconference said the redevelopment project would be undertaken on a public private partnership ppp model by leveraging the real estate available at the railway stations the redeveloped stations will improve passenger experience through amenities like digital signage escalators and elevators selfticketing counters executive lounges luggage screening machines walkways holding areas for passengers grand and distinctive roofing and flooring free and paid wifi apart from the commercial complexes