Right after the crucial decision of the reorganisation of J&K as a Union Territory, the Central Government of India, taking hold of the region’s infrastructural development programmes, has decided to work on the Valley’s first Metro project as its initial breakthrough.
Unlike the states of Punjab, Haryana, UP and Karnataka, here in Srinagar, the Centre is about to organize the Valley’s first-ever investors’ summit in September-October. Meanwhile the project has come through.
Creating huge job opportunities the project is going to recruit over 1,300 job seekers which will include graduates and professionals with degrees in architecture, civil engineering, telecommunications, signal electronics and traffic management.
The project is estimated to be built at an expense of Rs5,108 crore, out of which the Centre and the J&K Government, each will fund 21.2% of the cost of the project and the remainig fund will be sponsored by commercial banks under a special purpose vehicle (SPV). Towards the end of the month, the first tender for its construction work will be released. For the oversight and administration of the project the Centre has already appointed infrastructure development enterprise RITES as its nodal agency.
The Shrinagar metro project is also going to be a money making venture for the government as it has been calculated that after its completion, for the initial five years, it will generate a revenue of over Rs 146 crore per annum and gradually with highs it can reach upto Rs1,200 crore per year.
It is quite obvious that when the service will be frequented by the general public, its fare will needed to be fixed. Regarding this, the detailed project report (DPR) of Srinagar Metro says, the fare will not exceed 1.5 times that of the existing bus fare in the city. Elaborately the DPR says, “Revenue for the Srinagar Metro will mainly consist of fare box collection and non-fare box sources such as property development, advertisement, parking, taxes etc.”
Routed for two sub-corridors — Indira Nagar to HMT Junction and Hazuribagh to Osmanabad, the Light Metro Corridor is going to run 25km through Srinagar. The J&K governor Satya Pal Malikhad announced last month that the project’s construction work would start very soon. The general public is highly excited for the new experiment.
