BMRC to get Rs 200 cr from Centre

BMRC to get Rs 200 cr from Centre
By S Praveen Dhaneshkar, D H News Service, Bangalore:


The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRC) will soon receive up to Rs 200 crore from the Centre as part of its share (15 per cent) in the Rs 6,395 crore urban transit project.

This will be the first ever contribution from the Union Ministry of Urban Development towards the ‘Namma Metro’ project after the Centre accorded its approval in April, 2006. The State government, also a stake holder in the project, had recently released Rs 200 crore to the BMRC from the Rs 700 crore earmarked in this year’s State budget.

Dr M Ramachandran, Secretary to the Ministry of Urban Development (MUD) told Deccan Herald from New Delhi that the MUD will soon receive the yearly expenditure budget from the BMRC after which the funds would be released.

With three important metro rail projects currently under its ambit, (Delhi Metro, Bangalore Metro and the Kolkata Metro), the Centre and the respective State governments are involved in a 15 per cent equity partnership, with 10 to 20 per cent as subordinate debt.

Dr Ramachandran said funds were not a issue, as the funding structure was pre-decided by the respective State governments earlier.

“The Delhi Metro model is the most viable for Bangalore as well. To keep the fares low the Bangalore had decided to follow Delhi and have a totally government funded venture. In Hyderabad Metro that has private participation, there is scope for property development by the participating company,” he added.

The Chennai and Kochi metro rail projects are awaiting approval from the Planning Commission of India.
All these projects follow the Delhi Metro model, with the Hyderabad Metro being an exception following a DBFOT (design, build, finance, operate and transfer) PPP (Public-Private-Partnership) model.

N Sivasailam, the managing director of BMRC said that the detailed expenditure budget amounting to Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,250 crore for September 2008-March 2009 is being finalised and will be submitted to the Centre next week.
“We expect the amount between Rs 100-200 crore to be released in the first week of October,” he said.