Metro Rail gets approval in Old City

With the state government giving its approval for the construction of Metro Rail in Old City, the residents of that part of the city can rejoice.

In a bid to kick-start the works as early as possible, the state government will be writing to L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad.

Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister KT Rama Rao held a review meeting recently where he instructed the Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (HMRL) authorities to begin work on the six km Metro stretch in the Old City.

Alternative plans were also discussed if project concessionaire L&T does not show interest due to land acquisition and viability issues and KTR directed the authorities to explore the possibility of state government taking it up on its own with external funds.

The Old City route falls under Corridor II of the Metro Rail project that stretches from Jubilee Bus Station to Falaknuma. But with about 1,100 properties are likely to be affected in the route, the alignment was opposed in 2013 by MIM which suggested changes in route alignment.

The new alignment route was from the Musi river, high court, City College, Hussaini Alam, Kalapathar and Bahadurpura. However, the project developer, L&T stated that the new alignment was not feasible financially and would increase the distance by two kilometres apart from the environmental issues to crop up since the alternative route passes along the Musi. 

Post this opposition, no decision was taken on Metro rail works in the Old City.

The six-km stretch in the Old City was left out of the 72 km Metro Rail project.

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