The Hindu Business Line : Hyderabad Metro to get Central funding

This is the first metro transport project in the country being developed under the public, private participatory model, and is being cited as a flagship project for replication in other cities.

Hyderabad , June 16

The Rs 7,986-crore Mass Rapid Transport System (MRTS)/Metro rail project, that seeks to decongest dense traffic zones in the city with a fast transport network, is poised to get Central Government support to make it financially viable.

However, the State, citing this as a mega project, is considering the option of seeking 25 per cent as Central support as viability gap as against 20 per cent. The State support including from the Centre would be about 30 per cent of the overall project cost.

This is the first metro transport project in the country being developed under the public, private participatory (PPP) model, and is being cited as a flagship project for replication in other cities. This is unlike other metro projects under implementation that are Government driven.

Addressing a press conference here today, the Principal Secretary Municipal Administration, Mr S.P. Singh, said investors' meet was held today, and the short-listed consortia have been asked to come up with their concrete proposals in writing.

"Based on their proposals, the financial and technical bid documents prepared. Later, request for proposals would follow. We expect to finalise the documents by next month and seek proposals from the developers by October and finalise the developer by December end. Work on the project would commence latest by January," Mr Singh explained.

The project Director MRTS, Mr N.V.S. Reddy, said: "We have managed to attract some of the best metro project developers from around the world and six consortia are now in the fray.

They are Magna Almore, Essar, Navbharat, GVK, Metrail and Reliance Energy, with their strategic partners. The phase one of 60 km is planned to be completed by October 2010."

As against its initial outlay of Rs 6,366 crore, the project cost has now been pegged at Rs 7,986 crore, taking into consideration the interest component during the project implementation.

Typically, a stretch of about one km would require an investment of about Rs 130-135 crore, and the project seeks to develop three busy corridors.

Some of the investors, who took part in the meeting today, expressed that the bidding process of each of the three arms be held separately. However, no decision has been taken on whether this would be one tender or three tenders.

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