Non-Fare Revenue policy: Indian Railways allows co-branding at railway stations for a fee

Following the lead of Delhi Metro, Indian Railways is all set to allow names of private players to be added to the names of its stations, for a price. On Thursday, the national transporter rolled out a new policy, permitting government organisations, or the brand owners to prefix or suffix their brand name or logo to the name of the railway station. However, such a brand name shall not exceed two words.

Do's & don'ts for private players

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Specifying that, this would completely be a form of advertisement and not tantamount to changing the name of the railway station. The said policy will not allow co-branding on the railway tickets, Passenger Reservation System, websites, route maps, in announcements through the public address systems, on the Rail Display Network, etc.

As per the policy, co-branding would be permitted at all places in the station building area wherever the name of the railway station is displayed. In addition, the licensee would also be allowed to advertise the brand in the passenger circulating area, subject to conditions of the out of home policy, and availability of space.

Exclusions from the change of policy

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However, zonal railways were advised to take steps to ensure that such prefixing/suffixing of brand names does not adversely impact the clear visibility of the station name which is essential for train operations. The policy excluded railway stations and heritage sites named after eminent personalities, national leaders, martyrs from this change of policy.

With more than 7,000 stations across India, the new scheme will be a part of the Non-Fare Revenue policy. Zonal railways will fix the fee, taking into account, among other things, the prevailing local circle rates.

Zonal railways have been given the task to bid out their station names either individually or in clusters. As part of the deal, the advertising site will be allotted for a period of three years. One advantage the co-branding company will get is that it will get prominent space in station circulating areas to display its advertisements.

- With agency inputs