Put Metro Rail project on hold, says MLC

Put Metro Rail project on hold, says MLC

The Hindu

`Project being foisted on Bangalore'

BANGALORE: The Metro Rail project should be put on hold until international experts conduct a peer review to determine whether Bangalore has the capacity or need for such a massive transport system, the Bharatiya Janata Party MLC, Ramachandra Gowda, has said.

He has written a letter to the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, voicing misgivings that the project, whose estimated cost has gone up from an initial Rs. 3,500 crores to Rs. 6,000 crores, to cover a mere 36 km, will not serve the transport needs of all sections of the population and might end up adding to the chaos and confusion, making traffic management virtually impossible. In reality, when the project is completed, the cost could go up to Rs. 12,000 crores, just as it happened in the case of Delhi Metro, he said.

Mr. Gowda, who shared the contents of the letter with presspersons here on Tuesday, alleged that the Metro Rail project is "being foisted" on Bangalore. "This is like buying a horse, because we have a horseshoe," he said.

A global expression of interest has to be called for, and after evaluation and assessment on financial terms a proper policy must be put in place and executed efficiently, Mr. Gowda said.

Mr. Gowda has listed several reasons why Metro Rail should be put on hold.

Apart from 4,500 km of motorable roads, Bangalore, whose population is 60 lakhs, has 41,500 km of narrow lanes. Its capacity for vehicular traffic is only seven lakhs, while 22 lakh vehicles actually ply (apart from five lakh vehicles that come in from outside daily). Over 900 new vehicles are being registered every day in the Regional Transport Offices. This has brought down the average cruising speed to between 10 and 12 kmph.