Title - New company to smoothen NCR travel

With Rs.100 crore share capital, the Corporation will implement the Regional Rapid Transport System

The four States of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and the Ministries of Railways, Urban Development and the National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) on Thursday inked an agreement to set up a new shell company, the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC).The Corporation will design, develop, implement, finance, operate and maintain the Regional Rapid Transport System (RRTS) in the National Capital Region to provide comfortable and fast transit to NCR towns, and meet the high growth in transport demand.The company will have a share capital of Rs.100 crore on a 50:50 ownership pattern with 50 per cent owned by the Centre and 50 per cent by the State governments.

The company will implement individual RRTS corridors either through separate Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) or on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

In the first phase, the RRTS will cover Delhi-Sonepat-Panipat, Delhi-Gurgaon-Alwar and Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut.

Estimated to cost around Rs.72,000 crore, the RRTS corridors will have a designated completion time of five years from the time of land acquisition, said Urban Development Secretary Sudhir Krishna.

He urged the States to come up with innovative funding methods so that the dependence on Central Government funding is reduced. Mr. Krishna said money can be raised through property development along the transit corridors and stations, and through increased property tax collections and increased floor area ratios.

He also encouraged the States to look at borrowing from the domestic markets as has been done by the Bangalore Metro.

The funding pattern of the three rail-based corridors, however, would be chalked out separately keeping in mind factors such as the territory that a line covers in various States. “As per the tentative costs the project is pegged at Rs. 72,000 crore and to avoid cost and time overruns, work of the projects should start at the earliest,” said NCRPB member secretary Naini Jayaseelan.

On Delhi’s opposition to allow RRTS to terminate within city limits, Urban Development officials said the issue is being discussed and Delhi’s apprehension that it will lead to chaos are being allayed.

“We have explained how the RRTS and the Metro and other modes of public transport are being integrated for seamless connectivity and hopefully all issues will be resolved,” said S.K. Lohia, officer on special duty, urban transport.

Of the three proposed corridors, Delhi-Alwar is the longest at 180 km and would reduce travel time to 117 minutes, the corridor from Delhi to Panipat is 111 km with a travel time of 74 minutes and the 90-km-long Delhi-Meerut route has a proposed travel time of 62 minutes.