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Sultan Bazaar traders jubilant
Sultan Bazaar traders jubilant, The statement of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in the Assembly on Friday that the Metro Rail would have to go underground near the State Assembly building
- Metro rail going underground as suggested by KCR
- HMR estimates a cost escalation of `1,500-2,000 cr
- L&T: It will entail redesign and delay in execution
- A-G had ruled out underground track due to rocky terrain in 2012
Hyderabad: The statement of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in the Assembly on Friday that the Metro Rail would have to go underground near the State Assembly building, Sultan Bazaar and Mozamjahi Market to save shops and heritage buildings from demolition has made the merchants in Sultan Bazaar a happy lot but the officials at Hyderabad Metro Rail and L&T are worried that they will have to make changes in the project design.
NVS Reddy, MD HMR, said, “It’s too early to say. It needs to be worked out.” However, a senior HMR official said that the cost escalation could be anywhere between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,000 crore. With the latest development, the Metro Rail project has been stopped in its track and Sultan Bazaar area has once again come into focus.
Corridor-II of the Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR), between Jubilee Bus Stand and Falaknuma, has always been a contentious issue right from the beginning when the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh government awarded the contract to build a 71-km Metro Rail project. The cost for the entire project at the time it was awarded was Rs 12,312 crore, which has now gone up to Rs 22,000 crore. L&T Metro chief executive and managing director VB Gadgil said that as of now the company did not receive an official communication from the government but added that it would entail a redesign and lead to delay.
The reasons cited by HMR and L&T for not going underground are based on the appeal by HMR Ltd against an order of a single judge staying execution of the metro rail project in Corridor III between Greenlands and Shilparaman. The advocate-general had ruled out the possibility of undertaking underground metro rail work by taking up excavation in a rocky terrain. The appeal was made in 2012.
Suman Gupta of Traders Joint Action Committee, Sultan Bazaar, however, says that it was just an appeal but no survey was conducted either by HMR, L&T or an independent agency. “Out of the 128 metro stations in the world, 78 are underground. So what’s the problem?” he says.
Shasibhusan, also from the Traders Joint Action Committee, Sultan Bazaar, says, “If it is an elevated Metro Rail more than 1,000 properties including 10 mosques and the Jain Mandir, which has got a history of more than 150 years, would be lost.”
According to estimates prepared by HMR in 2011, the cost of elevated Metro Rail was Rs 200 crore per km and if it was taken underground, it would have been Rs 450 crore per km.
Today the cost escalation would be manifold considering the acquisition of properties, inflation and redesign.
The Metro Rail project is slated to be completed by 2017 but with the change in alignment at a few locations and cost escalation, the project would extend if not by months but at least a year, opine officials.
