MIPL offers to complete monorail in 15 months

MIPL offers to complete monorail in 15 months
The Hindu

Consortium will fund the project on its own

MIPL ready to take up the project on Build, Own, Operate and Transfer basis It will be transferred to the Government after 40 years Monorail will cost Rs. 45 crore to Rs. 50 crore for every km It will be a feeder line and will not compete with metro rail


BANGALORE: Metrail India Pvt. Ltd. (MIPL) has offered to put the monorail on track in 12 to 15 months, without the State Government investing "even a rupee".

Rehan Khan, director of the company, told The Hindu from England over phone that the consortium, which had proposed monorail for Bangalore, would arrange for its own funds to ensure faster completion of the project. The Austirual Mac Quarie Bank, which was part of the consortium, would fund the project, he said.

His company was willing to take up the project on Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) basis. It would be transferred to the Government after 40 years, he said.

It had submitted a proposal for monorail from Jaraganahalli (Kanakapura Road) to Cantonment (about 18 km); Hudson Circle to ITPL and Hudson Circle to Electronics City (together about 40 km) and a loop from Cantonment Railway Station to Cantonment Railway Station (30 km via Bellary Road, Ring Road, Lingarajapuram and ITC factory.

He clarified that his company had never submitted any proposal for a monorail from Kanakapura Road to Majestic nor had any promoter from any other company made such a proposal.

However, his company, if entrusted with the work, would realign the project accordingly, he said.

Monorail would cost Rs. 45 crore to Rs. 50 crore for every km. He said monorail would be a feeder line and would not compete with metro rail.

MIPL has proposed interchange stations (from monorail to metro rail and vice versa) at National College, Basavanagudi, and on Cubbon Road.

In its offer, the MIPL has made the following claims: The per carriage capacity is 120 persons and a typical train can have 10 carriages. The gap between trains can be under two minutes, and the system as a whole can transport up to 48,000 people an hour with the maximum speed being 100 km/hr.

For depots, there is no need for land acquisition and all stations are elevated. The trains will run on solar power, batteries and multi-fuel generators. It is safest system with fatalities being zero in 100 years of operation, the proposal said.

Mr. Khan said the State Government had not indicated anything to the company as yet. Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy had announced that work on monorail project would begin by August 15.

There are a few companies in the world which take up monorail construction and the State may have call global tenders fast if it had to meet the deadline, said a Government official. It would take about three months after floating tenders to select a company and entrust the work, he said.