Telangana government begins hunt for funds and lands for Hyderabad Metro Rail

The Telangana State Government has launched a hunt for funds to take up the expansion of the Metro Rail project and also suitable lands for acquisition to take up the project on a fast pace old City and other places also in the city . State Finance and MA and UD wings have been entrusted with the responsibility of fund mobilization.

State Municipal Administration Minister KT Rama Rao held a review meeting on the Airport Metro and other Metro expansion projects on Thursday in Metro Rail Bhavan, attended by Chief Secretary A Santhi Kumari and other senior officers The minister instructed the officials to speed to the finalization of DPRs for the expansion of the metro rail.

The proposal to double the ridership to 10 lakh per day by introducing many feeder services was also discussed in the meeting. He said that by introducing more coaches, improving feeder services, and developing better footpaths, the current metro ridership of 5 lakh per day can be doubled and vehicular congestion reduced in the city.

The minister instructed the departments and organizations concerned to hand over the identified government properties to Hyderabad Airport Metro Ltd immediately to start the construction activity. He also directed the GMR Airport authorities to hand over 48 acres of land in the airport area for construction of Metro Rail depot. The Chief Secretary was requested to hold periodical coordination meetings and facilitate expeditious execution of the Airport Metro project.

The minister reviewed the progress in seeking funds from the Union Government for BHEL-Lakdikapul & Nagole-LB Nagar (36 km) metro rail project as a joint venture project of state and the centre at the cost of Rs 9,100 crore . The officials have been asked to pursue with the centre to the speedy release of the funds.

The Minister has also directed the Metro Rail MD to start surveys of all the new metro corridors recently approved by the Cabinet and get preliminary project reports/ Detailed Project Reports ( DPRs) ready in the next few months for sending them to the centre. He advised Special Chief Secretary Finance K. Ramakrishna Rao and MA&UD Special Chief Secretary Arvind Kumar to explore different funding options for the new metro projects. The Minister also instructed the collectors of Hyderabad, Medchal and Sangareddy districts to identify vacant government land parcels nearer to the existing and proposed metro stations for developing multi level car parking complexes.eom