L&T Metro Rail (Hyderabad) Limited, the concessionaire of the Rs 16,000-crore Hyderabad metro rail project, was yet to decide the timing of the launch of initial stage operations covering a 19 km distance owing to last mile issues among other considerations.
"We are discussing with the state government and evaluating various parameters for this purpose. We will take a call soon on whether to start the initial operations during the current year or not," L&T Metro chief executive V B Gadgil told Business Standard on Monday.
On top of the last mile issues such as the necessary security arrangements by the government and the safety certification being awaited from the Central authorities, the concessionaire was also keen to make sure of itself that the subsequent stages of operations are added within a gap of every six months thereafter.
The entire project was proposed to be completed in five years from the appointed date of July 5, 2012 though field level problems in granting right of way and the removal of utilities and structures were expected to push the project beyond 2017. The government had cleared most of the bottlenecks that came in way of the project execution. The company has so far spent about Rs 8,900 crore on the project.
In the initial stage, L&T has readied two stretches for operating the metro rail, one with 8 km and the other one with 11 km distance on the two ends of a 29-km corridor of the three-corridor maitro rail project that covers a total distance of 73 kms.
"There were no stage-wise milestones prescribed as the concession agreement only talks about completion of the project in five years of time. However, we have planned to launch the project in stages to gain and improve upon the experience in running the project. But we also want to be in a position to operationalise the next stage project within six months from the launch of operations on the first19 km distance," Gadgil said citing some field level issues involving the next stage, which connects the two initial stretches to Secunderabad railway station.
According to Gadgil, the prospective metro passengers will be able to find the usefulness of metro ride only when the new distances were added on each of this corridor in a quick succession.
Besides this, the company has been focusing simultaneously on the transit oriented development(TOD) as the commercial and retail space being built on the upcoming Metro Rail stations was projected to contribute 50 per cent of the revenues to the project concessionaire at least in the initial years after the completion of the project.
Currently three properties, each having a multiplex provision, were under development at the busy places of High Tech City, Punjagutta and Erramanjil while the PVR group had already signed MoU with L&T Metro to operate all the three multiplexes . "We have concluded MoUs for almost 75 per cent of the 1.2 million square feet space in these three places. The first two properties will be ready by June this year while the TOD at Erramanjil is expected to be completed by October this year," the L&T Metro chief said.
As the utilisation of commercial development waslinked to the start of metro rail operations, the concessionaire has also been under pressure to achieve progress on both the fronts.
