Duty-free shops at railway stations

New Delhi, Oct 19(PTI) With the aim of mopping up additional income, railways is mulling to develop a revenue model to have duty-free shops and multiplex at stations. "Our stations can be developed into a hub of commercial activities. There can be a mall, multiplex, library, food plaza and even duty-free shops at stations," Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi told the Economic Editors'' conference here today. There are more than 7000 stations across the country. "We have to develop a revenue model for commercial utilisation of our stations and for that we are planning to constitute Station Authority of India like the Airport Authority of India," Trivedi said. He said the vertical development of stations as commercial hubs would create at least 50,000 jobs. "Our core responsibility is to run trains and now the time has come to develeop a revenue model for stations.Staions are out huge assets and it will create job opportunities." Referring to the problematic land issue, he said "land is a big issue not only for railway but for the whole country.Most of our land is parallel to the track. But if we could commercially exploit the land, then our earnings would jump." Railways have identified more than 300 sites across the country for commercial utilisation of the land. "To begin with, we are creating a land bank by digitising the land record of railways as it will help us in planning in a better to utilise those land," he said.