Clearance for Metro Rail project soon

Mega Metro Rail project back on track
Vijay Times

Bangalore: The State Cabinet is all set to clear the much delayed Rs.4,988 crore Bangalore Metro Rail project, which is considered as the only hope for tackling the traffic congestion of the burgeoning city.

Chief Minister Dharam Singh who held a meeting with Chairman of Delhi Metro Railway Corporation (DMRC) R Sridharan on Thursday, later told media persons that the detailed project report submitted by DMRC had been sent to the Finance department for an appraisal and it would then be approved by the Cabinet clearing the decks for its implementation.

The proposal would then be sent for the approval of Union Urban Development ministry seeking financial participation from the Centre and clearance for market borrowing, Dharam added. The share of State government and the Centre would be Rs.899 crore each and the balance would be met by market borrowing. The project will cost Rs.4988 crore including the escalation and interest, he added.

The project report submitted way back in May, 2003 consists of 33 Kms of tracks in two corridors - East-West(18.1km) and North-West(14.9 Km), out of which 6.7 Km is underground. There will be 32 stations, roughly one per every Km. Initially 166 trains will run in each direction of each corridor every day at a frequency of 4 minutes during peak hours. There will be 3 coaches initially attached to every train which will be fully air-conditioned. The number of coaches would be increased later to 6.

The project will be completed in 5 years in stages with commissioning of first stage of 7 Km in three and a half years.
The speed of trains will be about 30 to 35 Km per hour against the bus speed of about 15 to 20 Km per hour.
During construction around 9000 persons will be employed for 3 years and during operational maintenance phase, the staff strength will be around 1320.