Is Hyderabad Metro a failure, question commuters

Hyderabad is a city that is growing day by day and every minute at large. With such vast growth prospects from all the angles, the city has turned into a hub of innovators, entrepreneurs, talented youngsters making it truly a cosmopolitan city.

This all has led to a rapid urbanisation and the city prides itself with some iconic landmarks including a glamorous airport, glitzy metro rail, vast ORR, Hi-Tech City among many others. Majority of Hyderabadis as per my observation prefers to travel and enjoy the outside city beauty and the patent food of the city just ignoring the Covid pandemic situations also. So, the metro rail makes their dreams come true with meagre travelling expenses.

Hyderabad harbours top-end pharma R&D facilities like Genome Valley; and drives innovation with companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, Uber, Amazon, Ikea along with more than 20 companies ranked in the Fortune 500 companies, headquartered here. The latest entrant is the financial services major Goldman Sachs.

With such vast growth prospects, Hyderabad has turned into a melting pot of innovators, entrepreneurs, talents making it truly a cosmopolitan city. This all has led to a rapid urbanization and the city prides itself with some iconic landmarks including a swanky airport, glitzy metro rail, vast ORR, Hi-Tech City among many others.

The city may look like a giant ecosystem fuelling growth and innovation, but there is other side to this progress. The rapid urbanisation has taken its own toll. The increasing pressure of the burgeoning population has always put Hyderabad's transportation system under constant pressure. Recently, The Hans India published an edit page article expressing serious concern over the loss which is said to be around Rs 1700 crore last year and total accumulated loss of about Rs. 4000 crore. This presents a grim picture of country's second largest metro network.

Metro Rail, no doubt, as an urban transportation system, is definitely a viable option but no one is answering why people are not taking metro for their daily city commute. If the State government takes a small initiation in developing the metro rail services and the tourist sector indirectly, the city can increase the source of its revenue. It should also look into last mile connectivity. People will then get habituated and enjoy the Metro rail services.

V Shanthi, Assistant Professor, AMS College, Hyderabad

Improve last mile connectivity urgently

Metro rail was developed in the city for easy commute but is this transport facility benefiting the larger communities? Why people are not availing metro services for their daily commute is the question. The main reason behind this is that it does not provide first and last mile connectivity.

According to the daily metro commuters may be the metro rail project is a failure, as the metro train fares are too high, there is lack of proper parking facility and to reach a particular destination there is lack of first and last mile connectivity. Also nowadays people are forced to opt for other public transport, as Metro Rail authorities have closed down few exit points , foot over bridges and not operating elevators at many stations in the city. We as commuters feel that slowly the metro rail is losing its charm, as the main attraction of the metro stations was eatery joints at the station premises due to the lock down many joints got shut.

As per data due to Covid pandemic Hyderabad Metro rail which had a footfall of over 1.30 lakh per day before the Covid has fallen by 50 per cent and also is incurring losses around Rs 1700 crore in 2020 and total accumulated loss is of Rs 4000 crore. Even those who opened food joints etc in stations have closed and suffered losses.

With the development of metro rail it should have made commuting easy but is this really happening? According to me it is not happening. Before I used to regularly travel by metro train but the fare of metro train is too high compared to the bus, for instance from Madhapur to Paradise bus charge is Rs 20 whereas metro fare is Rs 45, so why would people travel in Metro? Now a days I have noticed that many exit points at the stations are closed that is forcing many passengers to opt for the other public transport. As for connectivity, they should work with TSRTC to arrange bus stops and run feeder services."

DSR Chaitanya, Hyderabad

Each and every day I face hardship while traveling by metro rail , as first of all to reach Metro station, I need to board a auto or cab form my locality that is Boduppal and again after reaching certain point from metro I need to catch an auto or cab once again. That is burning big hole in my pocket every day. Only advantage of the metro rail is the duration. If the state government takes the initative to develop the Metro service in the entire city that would help the commuters for easy traveling

M Prashanth, Hyderabad

There are very few takers for metro trains because of lack of first and last mile connectivity . Also metro stations lacks proper parking facilities . As before lockdown I used to travel by metro rail but due to the daily expenses I stopped travelling in metro. Only west side of the city that is Punjagutta , Banjara Hills, Madhapur and Hitech City there is a connectivity but what about the northern and eastern part of the city. As earlier there was the shuttle services at the station premises but that also is too costly and slowly those services were shut.

Sai Kumar, Hyderabad