PNS|Hyderabad
Municipal Administration Minister KT Rama Rao held a review on the Airport Metro and other Metro expansion projects on Thursday at the Metro Rail Bhavan which was attended by Chief Secretary A. Santi Kumari and other senior officers.
He advised Special Chief Secretary (Finance) K. Ramakrishna Rao and MA & UD Special Chief Secretary Arvind Kumar to explore funding options for the new Metro projects.
He also instructed the Collectors of Hyderabad, Medchal and Sangareddy districts to identify vacant government land parcels near existing and proposed Metro stations for developing multi-level car parking complexes as directed by the CM.
Broadly explaining the aim of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to make Hyderabad a global city with world-class infrastructure, KTR emphasised the importance of public transportation in reducing congestion and pollution and turning the city into a globally competitive city to attract investments.
He said that 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 response to a detailed PowerPoint presentation made by Metro Rail MD NVS Reddy, KTR instructed the government departments and organisations concerned to hand over identified government properties to Hyderabad Airport Metro Ltd immediately to start construction.
He also directed the GMR Airport authorities to hand over 48 acres in the airport area for constructing the Metro Rail depot. He requested the CS to hold periodical coordination meetings and facilitate the speedy execution of the Airport Metro project and also take up with senior Central officers approval for the Rs 9,100 crore BHEL–Lakdikapul and the Nagole–LB Nagar (36 km) project as a joint venture of GoTS and GoI.He also directed the Metro MD to start surveys of all new Metro corridors recently approved by the Cabinet and get Preliminary Project Reports/Detailed Project Reports ready in the next few months for sending them to the Centre.
During another meeting held with Akbaruddin Owaisi, KTR directed the Metro Rail MD to speed up land acquisition in the Old City Metro corridor and to start construction there and also plan for the further extension of the line to the airport from Falaknuma.
