Telangana government looking for funds and land for metro rail project in old city

Hyderabad: The State government has launched a hunt for funds to take up expansion of the Metro Rail project and also suitable lands for acquisition to take up the project on a fast pace in the Old City and other places. The State finance and MA and UD wings have been entrusted with the responsibility of fund mobilisation. Municipal Administration Minister KT Rama Rao held a review meeting on the Airport Metro and other Metro expansion projects on Thursday in Metro Rail Bhavan, attended by Chief Secretary A Santhi Kumari and other senior officers. He instructed officials to speed up finalisation of DPRs for the Metro Rail expansion. The proposal to double the ridership to 10 lakh per day by introducing many feeder services was also discussed in the meeting. He said by introducing more coaches, improving feeder services and developing better footpaths, the current Metro ridership of five lakh a day can be doubled and vehicular congestion reduced in the city. The minister instructed the departments and organisations concerned to hand over the identified government properties to Hyderabad Airport Metro Ltd immediately to start the construction activity. He directed the GMR Airport authorities to hand over 48 acres in the airport area for construction of Metro Rail depot. The Chief Secretary was requested to hold periodical coordination meetings and facilitate expeditious execution of the Airport Metro project. The minister reviewed the progress in seeking funds from the Union government for BHEL-Lakdikapul&Nagole-LB Nagar (36 km) Metro Rail project as a joint venture project of State and the Centre at the cost of Rs 9,100 crore. He asked officials to pursue with the Centre to the speedy release of funds. The minister also directed the Metro Rail MD to start surveys of all new Metro corridors recently approved by the Cabinet and get preliminary project reports/ detailed project reports ( DPRs) ready in the next few months for sending them to the Centre. He advised Special Chief Secretary Finance K. Ramakrishna Rao and MA&UD Special Chief Secretary Arvind Kumar to explore different funding options for the new Metro projects. The minister also instructed the collectors of Hyderabad, Medchal and Sangareddy districts to identify vacant government land parcels nearer to the existing and proposed Metro stations for developing multi-level car parking complexes. At a separate meeting with AIMIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi, KTR directed the Metro Rail authorities to expedite land acquisition process in the Old City Metro corridor and start construction there; and also to plan for further extension of the line to the airport from Falaknuma.