‘L&TMRH not given extra land, fares bare minimum’

L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad (L&TMRH), the concessionnaire which built the Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) project phase one across three corridors and operating, has not been given any extra acre of land than what was specified under the Detailed Project Report (DPR) prepared by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) or Concessionnaire Agreement (CA), said HMR managing director N.V.S. Reddy.

“There is a talk even now that the Metro rail project has been gifted away a lot of land and fares are high but it is not true. Despite HMR being a Public Private Partnership (PPP) project, where funds have been sourced from commercial banks unlike other metros funded by Centre-State governments, we have not allowed unfettered property development and fares have been kept to the bare minimum,” he asserted, in an interaction with the media at Metro Rail Bhavan. The MD said even when the PPP was not initially conceived DMRC prepared DPR had mentioned 269 acres was needed for the project. Initially, it was conceived for two routes during the Telugu Desam regime in 2003 from Miyapur to Chaitanyapuri and Secunderabad Station to Falaknuma, but it did not take off. The next Congress government expressed inability to fund such a huge project which was when he along with the then GHMC Commissioner and later Chief Secretary S.P. Singh came up with the PPP mode, adding a third route between Nagole and Hi-Tec City/Raidurg, after studying the best Metro systems around the world.

“We have given 269 acres, including 212 acres, for depots only as was specified in DPR and can be compared to other metros (See Box -1). CA allows 30% of 100 acre each land allotted for depots in Nagole and Uppal for commercial exploitation. L&TMRH was supposed to have built 6 million sq.ft of the 18.5 million sq.ft by time of commercial operations but they built just 1.3 million sq.ft only due to delays and cost overruns,” he explained.

Mr. Reddy gave a comparative figure of fares in other metros and explained that L&TMRH as ‘Metro Regulation Authority’ as specified under the Central Metro Act has the power to fix fares. Fare hike is linked to annual inflation rate and operating agency has the right to increase it every year.