The Hindu Business Line : Bid to attract more passengers — Marketing initiative for Kolkata Metro on cards

The idea behind the proposed exercise is to narrow the gap between its annual operational expenditure of Rs 90 crore and a revenue of Rs 40 crore that is generated every year.

KOLKATA, March 26

THE Metro Railway, Kolkata, is contemplating a marketing initiative with a view to attracting more passengers.

The idea behind the proposed exercise is to narrow the gap between its annual operational expenditure of Rs 90 crore and a revenue of Rs 40 crore that is generated every year.

Stating this during an interface with newspersons here today, the Minister of State for Railways, Mr Bandaru Dattaraya, said an exercise such as this, along with promotional schemes and appropriate advertisements, would be imperative to attract more people to use the Metro Railway.

Mr Dattaraya said the West Bengal Government was disinclined to give Metro Railway any "financial assistance or transport subsidy''. He said the matter would be taken up once again with the State Government, which would be asked to bear part of the operational and maintenance costs incurred annually. In this context, he said that State Governments are now required to bear part of the costs of all urban transport projects.

Smart cards would soon be introduced, as a pilot project to begin with, in Metro Railway. This would facilitate faster dispersal of passengers at select exit points.

According to him, the Ministry of Railways was focussing on track renewal and upgradation of railway bridges, signalling equipment and rolling stock. The exercise was expected to be completed by 2007. An expenditure of Rs 17,000 crore would be incurred on this.

A special Railway Safety Fund has been created for the purpose.

Out of the Rs 17,000 crore corpus, the Government has committed Rs 12,000 crore while the balance would be raised by way of security surcharge from passengers. In the current fiscal ending March 31, about Rs 2,110 crore would be spent on this score.

Of this, the Centre has provided around Rs 1,700 crore while the balance would be accounted for by the surcharge component.

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Bid to attract more passengers — Marketing initiative for Kolkata Metro on cards