 "Rs 83k-cr Metro rail projects under review: Venkaiah Naidu")
Unveiling the first car-body shell manufactured for Kochi Metro in Alstom Transport’s facility in the SriCity integrated business city near Chennai, he said while the metro was not viable in many cities it was suitable for many others. The cost of setting up a metro network is around Rs 250 crore per km.
“The Delhi Metro has been developed with an investment of Rs 43,000 crore. One study recently said the Delhi
Metro had saved about Rs 10,000 crore every year in fuel and environmental gains,” he said.
India has about 259 km of metro lines, of which 189 km is in Delhi and 60 km in four other cities. Work is on in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai and Nagpur. The government will take up projects in
Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada.·
Around 528 km of metro lines will become operational soon, including 138 km in Delhi and 25 km in Kochi. The cost of the projects in progress is estimated at Rs 164,915 crore. The Kochi Metro is coming up at a cost of Rs 5,182 crore and is likely to be completed by 2017.
The large number of projects in the pipeline demand more rolling stock and the government is encouraging production of coaches in India. Of the 2,100 coaches needed for the third phase of the Delhi Metro, 1,850 were manufactured locally, Naidu said.·
Indian plants have the capacity to make 620 metro coaches a year. BEML in Bengaluru has a plant to manufacture 150 cars, Bombardier’s facility in Gujarat can roll out 350 and Alstom in SriCity, Andhra Pradesh, can make 120.
Naidu said Bombardier had bagged a contract to deliver 450 metro cars made in India to Australia. “Exports will begin by the end of the year,” the minister added.·
Aryadan Mohammed, Kerala’s minister for power and metro, said Alstom’s cars for Kochi Metro were the cheapest in the country, at Rs 8.4 crore per coach. According to an Alstom executive, the average cost of a metro car is Rs 10-12 crore.