Ad screens at stations would earn railways revenue of Rs 10000 crore

The Indian Railways is planning to roll out two lakh screens at railway stations across the country, eyeing revenue of Rs 10,000 crore in the coming decade.

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As per the plan, giant digital screens would be placed at major railway stations in India to showcase real-time passenger information while also displaying digital advertisements, thereby providing revenue to the railways.

The national transporter is considering this platform to raise funds from non-ticketing sources, and several top global firms like Google and Microsoft, along with Reliance, have expressed their interests in the project.

In the first phase, Rail Display Network (RDN) screens would be installed at around 400 major stations (A category), for which tenders would most likely be awarded by next month.

Some railway stations like Old Delhi, Gorakhpur, Gwalior and Varanasi are already having large and small digital screens, following the proof of concept (PoC) contract for RDN, which was awarded by the Indian railways.

For the cloud-controlled screens, state-run railways undertaking called RailTel will provide the optical fibre cable network.