RailEnquiry

The chief executive officer of the Delhi Metro Rail Corp, E Sreedharan, said here on Friday that developing cities like Bhubaneswar with less than one million population should prepare ground from now for having a metro rail system in future. Metro rail for cities with population of less than one million is not viable, as the project is very expensive, Sreedharan said. For the elevating route, the cost is about Rs 110 crore per km and for underground, it is around Rs 275 crore. He said small cities should have the rapid transportation system (RTS) instead of metro rail. Sreedharan, however, said cities should plan in advance to have the metro rail system and wait for the population to grow beyond two millions. Sreedharnan was speaking at a seminar on 'Delivering Success in the Public Sector', organised by the department of public enterprises, the government of Orissa. State public enterprises minister KV Singdeo and principal secretary of the department, BK Patnaik, also spoke on the occasion. Senior bureaucrats of the state government and senior executives of corporate houses like Posco India, Tata Steel, Dhamra Port Ltd and Vedanta Resources were present. Sreedharan said leaders and executives need to have high moral values for successful completion of a big project like the Delhi Metro Rail. He spoke in detail about the strategy for successful implementation of the project in time and running it efficiently. He said the Delhi Metro Rail Corp is now acting as a consultant for the metro projects in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai.