Hoardings To Make Way For Digital Displays At Railway Stations
Soon, flex hoardings will not stare at you inside railway stations. That's the plan, at least.
The Indian Railways is looking to install up to two lakh screens at 2,175 stations over the next two years to display messages and advertisements, two senior ministry officials told BloombergQuint requesting anonymity. It's a bid to boost non-fare revenue for the world's fourth-largest rail network, they said.
There will be no hoardings inside the stations in future, a ministry official said. The tender will be out any time soon, the second official quoted above said.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu had announced a separate non-fare revenue directorate in last year's rail budget. The national carrier is eyeing advertisements, train branding, on-demand content and commercial use of land to boost its earnings. The government plans to increase the non-fare revenue by 10-20 percent in the ongoing financial year.
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The target is Rs 10,000-crore revenue from the Rail Display Network in five years, said the second official quoted above. RailTel is implementing the project for 10 years and will share 65 percent of the revenue earned from private companies with the ministry, the official said.
BloombergQuint's emailed queries to the Railway Ministry and RailTel remained unanswered.
The display network will be built and operated as a self-sustainable model with no capital investment by Indian Railways, the two officials said. The screens will display information like train arrival/departure time, seat availability and social messages half the time and run advertisements during the rest, the second person quoted above said.
The plan is to first install the screens at large and small stations, and then at medium and suburban ones, he said.
“RailTel will appoint a private partner to market and finance the project,” said spokesperson of railways' subsidiary RailTel.
According to the Rail Display Network Policy, the licencee shall allow free of cost dissemination of Railways and railways-approved information on the RDN screens in 50 percent of time and space allotted.
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