The Hindu Business Line : Metrail still hopeful of clearance for Monorail in Bangalore

IN an effort to put at rest "inaccurate" comparisons about the viability of Monorail as a mass rapid system for Bangalore, the Chairman of Metrail India Pvt Ltd, Mr Zafar Saifullah, extolled its technical and financial advantages and said, he was still hopeful of the Government considering its proposal for Monorail to be a feed and supplement the Rs 6,000-crore Metro Rail project being pursued by the Government.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, he said "Monorails have been used as Mass Transport System (MST) across the world for a few decades. Chongqing, one of the largest cities in the world, boasts of a monorail as a MST with a capacity of over 40,000 passengers per direction (PPHD) and the system was a popular means of rapid transit in major world cities."

Mr Saifullah said Metrail had submitted its proposal with three options as a standalone system for 91 km, to feed and supplement the Metro Rail or routes that were left out by Metro Rail.

"At no stage we said metro should not be there in Bangalore," he said, adding that "it was an unfortunate controversy", whipped up between the Metro and Monorail.

A debate on the two system of mass trains system emanated in the media following a statement by the former Prime Minster and Janata Dal (S) President, Mr H.D. Deve Gowda, that there should be a debate on Metro Rail system saying any transport system being adopted for the city should be properly studied from the utility and cost point of view so that it did not overburden people.

Metrail had submitted its proposal in October last and a committee under the chairmanship of Mr Chiranjiv Singh, Principal Secretary, had been asked to evaluate the merit of the project.

Mr Saifullah, however, pleaded ignorance about its outcome and said: "The report is in the Government domain... If the result was negative I would have known by now," he said.

Mr Saifullah said the Metrail proposal of Rs 3,000 crore for a length of 80 km, with an approximate cost per km of Rs 40 crore, was one-third the cost of Metro Rail's Rs 120 crore per km. Its lower cost was because it uses no electric traction and quick gestation period with virtually no land requirement. Metrail's mono rail system runs on hybrid power (solar, CNG and batteries with regenerative breaking motors). Also, its flexibility in carrying capacity to optimise its usage by deploying requisite number of bogies to a train depending on the peak and lean hour traffic adds to its economic advantage. "Because the bogies of the monorail are self-powered, `we can add any number of bogies to a train. Alternatively, we can run the trains at short intervals one or two minutes each because of the very fast rate of acceleration and deceleration, which cannot be done by the Metro without compromising with safety".

He said Metrail would bear the entire cost of the project as against Metro Rail being financed by the State and Government, he said.

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