`Our monorail is to supplement Metro`

`Our monorail is to supplement Metro`
Business Standard

The ongoing controversy over whether Bangalore needs a metro rail or monorail, to an extent, has been laid to rest. The monorail promoters, Metrail India, on Friday clarified that they have proposed to the Karnataka government only to act as a feeder and supplement the upcoming metro rail.

Stating this at a press conference in Bangalore, Zafar Saifullah, chairman, Metrail said: “Our system of monorail has always been proposed as a feeder and supplementary system to the proposed metro rail in Bangalore. It is for the government to decide on the merits of which system to use. However, I would like to reiterate that if an open debate on the merits of the system is required, we would be more than happy to participate and place on record the comparative merits of the monorail.”

The controversy over these two form of transport arose over the past week when Janata Dal (S) supremo Deve Gowda wrote a letter to Karnataka chief minister Dharam Singh and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging them to have a relook at the pros and cons of metro rail and also give a thought to other modes of mass transportation for Bangalore.

In response, the metro rail chief made a few statements indicating that monorail was not for mass transportation and was not as rugged as metro rail.

Metrail people went to great lengths on Friday to argue that monorail is indeed used for mass transportation and cited live examples of such operations in China and Tokyo.

“When someone makes allegations, it is our responsibility to clear the air and we are doing it in our business and social interests,” Saifullah said.

In fact, he went a step further to highlight how easy it will be for monorail to be set up and how cheap it will be when compared to metro rail, which according to him will cause a good amount of disruptions in the city when being built.

“The Metro will cost approximately Rs 121 crore per kilometre, while monorail will cost around Rs 37 crore per km. Besides this, Metro will take four years to complete, while we can finish in a maximum of two years,” he claimed.

According to him, his monorail project will be totally funded by a consortium of private players while Metro Rail will be majorly funded by state and central governments.

“All the support we need from the government is the concession agreement for a period of 40 years, during which we will operate the monorail under BOOT (build, own, operate, transfer) and subsequently transfer the entire assets to the state government,” Zaifullah added.

Metrail plans to cover a total of 86 km across the city in two phases. The first phase, of 54.8 km, will connect the southern residential areas with the central business district and central part of the city which has high employment density.

Two alignments are proposed in Phase I. One connects Jaraganahalli to Cantonment Railway Station covering 18 km. The second connects Hudson Circle to Electronic City covering 17.7 km and Hudson Circle to ITPL covering 19 km.

The Phase II of this project will connect Silk Board to Jarganahalli, ITPL to Byappanahalli and North Loop via Cantonment station, Mehkri Circle, Hebbal, Lingarajpuram and Bangalore East.