Metro rail expert E.Sreedharan today toured the Vijayawada city to initiate studies on the potential for metro rail project in the proposed new capital for Andhra Pradesh.
The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had earlier appointed him to take up feasibility study and suggest ways to develop metro rail projects in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam cities.
On his maiden visit to study the feasibility, he said that it would take few months to come up with concrete proposals.
He plans to visit Visakahpatnam after about 10 days to assess the ground situation.
Renowned engineer was associated with several metro rail projects, the Konkan Railways project and later with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation in its design and execution and also management. He also assisted the unified Andhra Pradesh in the feasibility work and alignment for the Hyderabad metro rail project.
He suggested that the project could be taken up in 26 km on two corridors in phase one.
Sreedharan felt that it would be appropriate for the Government to take up the project rather than any other mode and indicated it might require about Rs 7,500 crore as per early estimates. Detailed project report would be ready by January 2015.
He said that it was not necessary to link Guntur. At a later stage the newly developed area could be connected.