French National Railways chief visits HMRL

Hyderabad: French National Railways (SNCF) Chairman Guillaume Pepy, along with his senior officers called on HMRL Managing Director NVS Reddy today (Saturday) at Metro Rail Bhavan in Hyderabad.

The Rs.2.68 lakh crore SNCF group has five major Rail companies including Keolis and Systra and it has a worldwide footprint, apart from running the French Railways. Exchanging their mutual experiences and innovative practices of both SNCF and HMRL, the two Rail Heads discussed on the possible areas of mutual cooperation.

Explaining the unique features of Hyderabad Metro Rail which is the world’s largest Metro Rail project in PPP mode and the innovations made by it in station design, it’s construction challenges and financial innovation, NVS Reddy shared Telangana government’s vision for development of Hyderabad  as a global city and Hyderabad Metro Rail phase-II expansion plans.

Hailing the Hyderabad Metro Rail’s PPP experiment as a bold initiative, Pepy stated that Hyderabad Metro is one of the best Metros in the world and that its performance indices are far superior to those of most other Metros.  Indicating that it’s group company Keolis is operating several Metro Rail, Light Rail, Tramway and Bus systems in different cities across the globe, Pepy highlighted that Hyderabad Metro stood number one in a recent survey in terms of passenger satisfaction, operational performance, punctuality etc., among them.
 
Impressed by the visionary approach of using Hyderabad Metro as an important instrument to improve the streetscape and pedestrian facilities in the city and the tact with which the construction hurdles were successfully tackled, Pepy requested NVS Reddy to visit their Railway headquarters and facilities in France, address senior SNCF officials there and share the Hyderabad Metro success story with them. Agnes Ogier, a Director on the SNCF Board and Eric Moiner, MD, Keolis Hyderabad MRTS also participated in the discussions.