Jaipal Reddy played important role in Hyderabad Metro Rail: NVS Reddy

Hyderabad: Former Union Minister S Jaipal Reddy played an important role in getting funds and other permissions for city's prestigious Hyderabad Metro Rail project, said HMR Managing Director N V S Reddy.

According to the HMR Managing Director, Jaipal Reddy had helped Metro Rail in many ways and went on to change the norms for taking up of the project.

NVS Reddy recalled that Ministry of Railways was insisting on adoption of broad gauge which was 5' 6" (i.e., 5feet 6 inches) for control over the metro projects in Indian cities.

The Delhi metro phase-I was built with BG but MD Sridharan faced a lot of problems as world over the gauge for metros is Standard Gauge (SG-4'8") and BG metro coaches were not available.

He had to get imported SG coaches altered to BG dimensions in Delhi metro phase-I.

After detailed discussions and interaction with international experts, including DMRC, governments of Maharashtra (for Mumbai metro), Karnataka (Bangalore metro) and the then united AP (Hyderabad Metro) strongly pleaded for permission to adopt SG and freedom for State governments to execute modern metros without interference from Railways.

Centre then appointed a Group of Ministers headed by Sharad Pawar to decide metro rail policy issues for the country. The Group consisted of Jaipal Reddy (Urban Development), P Chidambaram (Finance Minister), Lalu Prasad Yadav (Railways), Hansraj Bharadwaj (Law).

NVS Reddy said Railways, DMRC and the three State governments made presentations to GoM. NVS Reddy and the then MAUD Principal Secretary SP Singh met Jaipal Reddy informally and sought his guidance.

NVS Reddy said Jaipal Reddy advised the officials to make the GoM understand the issues and implications in simple terms without using much of technical jargon and legalese.

"I made a presentation accordingly to GoM and explained as to how the wider gauge BG was not suitable for city conditions. Many properties needed to be demolished in Hyderabad and other cities if BG was adopted. Many delays would occur for metros with BG as technology was not available for metros with BG etc.

I said Indian Railways had no stake or expertise in metro rail projects and they shouldn't dictate terms to the State governments," he said.

Other than Laluji all other members of GoM supported our stand and in 2008 Centre declared that 'Urban Transport' was a State subject as per the Constitution and States were free to adopt whichever gauge they wanted.

That's how all metros in Indian cities could be built as world class metros with state-of-the-art technologies, said NVS Reddy.