Hyderabad Metro Rail has completed its sixth year of commencement of commercial operations on November 28 in a relatively quiet fashion amid the hectic election campaign for Telangana Assembly elections that had come to an end.
Daily ridership is nearly touching the five lakh mark with an average of about 4.80 lakh people travelling across the three routes under phase one of the project: Red Line – LB Nagar (29 km) to Miyapur, Blue Line – Nagole to Raidurg and Green Line (29 km) – JBS to MGBS, Imlibun (11 km) of a total of about 69 km of elevated routes across the dense traffic corridors.
The routes were opened in phases across a three-year period after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the presence of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, has opened the inaugural stretch from Nagole to Miyapur via Ameerpet of 30 km in 2017 after work began on April 2012. Almost a year later, the Ameerpet to LB Nagar stretch was opened on September 24, 2018, Ameerpet to HiTec City was opened on March 20, 2019 and HiTec City to Raidurg stretch was opened on November 29, 2019. The final pending line moving into the Old City – JBS (Jubilee Bus Station) to MGBS – (Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station) was opened on February 2020.
The ridership was inching towards the four lakh mark when the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to everything and the metro rail authorities had to start all over again after being forced to shut down for a good six months. It also put paid to the efforts to get in fresh players to provide the last-mile connectivity as many firms simply folded up, said metro rail officials.
Red Line or the Corridor 1 continues to lug in most number of passengers with about 2.45 lakh passengers a day and this is followed by Blue Line or Corridor 3 carrying about 2.30 lakh passengers. The Green Line or Corridor 2 continues to lag behind with about 25,000 passengers day with fewer trips as a couple of 57 three-coach train sets have been shifted to handle the peak hour rush on Blue Line towards Raidurg.
The government has instructed the ‘concessionnaire’ L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad (L&TMRH) to lease metro train sets to tackle the rush hour traffic and there was a plan to lease four train sets from Nagpur Metro, but it has not materialised as of yet, according to top officials.
The current project including overhead stations have been built to accommodate six-coach train sets which can double the passenger carrying capacity. L&TMRH, which has also built the project, has declared a loss of about ₹ 1,315 crore this year and it has not made public any plans to order for new train sets. That the firm had sought financial assistance from the government citing project delays due to red tape is a matter of record.
Incidentally, the parent company L&T is among the two firms (NCC is the other firm) vying to get the contract for taking up the 31-km ₹6,250 crore Airport Metro from Mindspace Junction at Raidurg till the domestic terminal of the Shamshabad airport. Plans are ready and the new government that will take charge is going to have its hands full as substantial capital infusion will only get the work to take off.
Same goes with the pending 5.5 km ₹1,800 crore Old City line from MGBS to Falaknuma. In the meantime, Bengaluru has crossed Hyderabad to become the second highest metro line in the country with 74 km after New Delhi with 392 km of metro line network.
