Looks like it will be a long time before the next phase of the Hyderabad Metro Rail is constructed in the twin cities. While the new Congress government has sent Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) back to the drawing board for extending the present line from MGBS (Imlibun) and from there to the Shamshabad airport, it now turns out that the Centre has not yet cleared the BRS government preferred Airport metro line from Raidurg either.
The Centre has only stated that the 31 km Airport Metro from Raidurg which was proposed to be fully funded by the State is under “appraisal” despite the latter seeking “in principle approval”. Similarly, the metro phase-two proposed by the then government from 26 km Lakdikapul to BHEL and 5 km Nagole to LB Nagar estimated to cost ₹8,453 crore under joint funding by the Centre and State is also under appraisal, according to information obtained by RTI activist I. Ravikumar.
In the information shared with the media on Tuesday, the RTI activist having obtained the official correspondence between the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry and the State government, pointed out that the previous regime took five years to prepare a comprehensive detailed project report (DPR) for the proposed elevated line after initially writing to the Centre for funding in December 2018 with an initial DPR.
There was silence for three years between both and it was on December 1, 2022 that the Centre wrote to the government seeking information on 15 issues, including raising doubts about the DPR and the ridership of the Lakidikapul to BHEL metro line.
The BRS government, including then minister for IT K.T. Rama Rao and special chief secretary Arvind Kumar had provided some details on February 28, 2023 and another set of information was sent on August 8, 2023, as per the information sourced by Mr. Ravikumar.
The government in its communication had stated that the Lakidikapul-BHEL Peak Hour Peak Direction Traffic (PHPDT) is likely to be 21,260 passengers in 2031, 31,240 passengers by 2041 and 36,873 passengers by 2051. It also contended that the Centre had funded metro projects with much lesser PHPDTs, in its communication.
The then State Cabinet resolution copy was sent a good nine months after the Centre sought the same while the mandatory Urban Transport Fund (UTF) was formed in July 2023 only. The DPR submitted showed that both the Centre and State are to invest 17% each of the project cost — ₹1,067 plus ₹188 crore with 60% being the loan component or ₹3,767 crore, 3% debt and land cost of ₹739 crore to be borne by the State and another ₹248 crore is to be spent under the PPP-public, private partnership mode for lifts and other machinery.
