Even 9 Years After Proposal, Vizag Metro Is In Dpr Stage, Real Estate News, ET RealEstate
VISAKHAPATNAM: Even nine years after it was first proposed, the Vizag metro rail project is still stuck in the detailed project report (DPR) stage.
A DPR was first prepared during the TDP regime, and a global ‘expression of interest’ was floated in September 2017. The estimates for this metro project for a route length of 42.5 kilometres were pegged at 8,300 crore.
Five bidders were shortlisted for the ‘request for proposal’, the next stage. Even though the bidding process was completed by March 2019, the announcement of successful bidder was kept on hold due to the then impending general elections.
The 2019 elections brought in a change of guard. Soon after the YSRCP government assumed the office, the earlier tenders were retracted. Meanwhile, the Export-Import Bank of Korea walked out of the project in 2019, conveying its inability to finance the project.
Later, a new DPR was prepared by bringing a few more areas like Bhogapuram into the metro project’s ambit. After getting the required approvals from the state, the DPR needs to be submitted to the Centre for the viability gap funding.
State chief secretary Dr K S Jawahar Reddy chaired a meeting with district officials, including the Andhra Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation Limited officials, here at the VMRDA office on Saturday. The CS directed the officials to resolve all the technical issues pertaining to the project by January 2024 and speed up the project.
As per the DPR, the estimates for the 76.9-kilometre metro project have been put at 14,309 crore. This is apart from the nearly 60-kilometre modern trackless tram corridors proposed in other routes.
Several new areas, which were not part of the earlier 42.5-km DPR prepared before 2019, like Bhogapuram, Anakapalli, Pendurthi, etc. have been included in the metro and tram DPRs. This increased the length of the project to nearly 140 kilometres (metro for nearly 80 kilometres and tram corridors for about 60 kilometres).
The Union government looks into the financial assistance to metro rail projects as and when posed by the concerned state government(s). However, approval of such projects depends upon feasibility of proposal and availability of resources.
For instance, the Centre has made an allocation of 19,500 crore to different metro projects of the country in the recently released 2023-24 budget.
