Hyderabad Metro Rail Ltd is on course to commissioning the line linking the busy IT hub of Hitec City by the yearend.
Once operational, this will complete the two full metro lines of the proposed 72 km, three corridor elevated metro rail project.
The ₹20,000 crore project, which is at advanced stage of construction, is expected to see the commissioning of the third corridor minus the line linking the Old City section beyond the Musi river by the middle of next year.
Awarded
The project, being implemented by the construction major L&T under the public, private partnership mode, with viability gap funding from the Centre, has been adjudged as the best urban mass transit project by the Centre.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development presented the award of excellence to NVS Reddy, HMRL Managing Director, and KVB Reddy, L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad Ltd Managing Director, and described it as an outstanding project with a lot of engineering and financial innovations.
The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in its citation said, “Hyderabad Metro rail has emerged as a successful example of public, private partnership (PPP) initiative. It is an urban redesign and rejuvenation effort to transform the city into a people friendly green environ. Robust structural design, land pooling and other modes of revenue generation are other noteworthy features of the project.”
Heritage section
NVS Reddy said that a 5-km stretch between State Legislative Assembly and Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station on the Musi river banks, will be developed as a heritage section with pedestrian pathways and sky walks.
Referring to the Central government moves, NVS Reddy said that the Centre has proposed to develop all future metros as urban rejuvenation projects, which will develop related infrastructure along the corridor.
As a part of this move, about 5-10 per cent of the project cost will be set apart for the development of related infrastructure, he said.
The Phase 1 of the metro project was commissioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2017. Later, another section was added a couple of months ago. With the commissioning of the metro line up to Hitec City, the metro will have seen the completion of two of the three corridors.
Currently, 1.75 lakh to 1.8 lakh passengers are using the metro daily. As per estimates, it will take about five years after its completion for the metro project to be financially viable.