Tewari meets Khattar, presses for mass rapid transit system

MP and former Union Minister Manish Tewari has urged Union Minister for Housing and Urban Development ML Khattar to implement a Chandigarh mass rapid transit system (MRTS) project.

In a meeting with Khattar, Tewari handed him a letter.

The Chandigarh MP explained that how since November 2019 he had been pursuing the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre that an MRTS on two salients can be considered — Ambala to Kurali and from Landran to Kalka. He said this needs to be immediately conceptualised, utilising the overground railway network and creating a hybrid overground and underground metro system, that would connect the four cities of Chandigarh, Mohali, Panchkula and New Chandigarh, thereby catalysing the economic potential of the region.

Tewari urged Khattar to put his personal torque behind the Chandigarh MRTS project. He stressed the fact that the Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (UMTA) had been very sporadic in its approach towards the MRTS/Metro project.

The meetings of the UMTA have been ambiguous and there seems to be a lack of clarity with regard to the implementation of the project, notwithstanding the fact that RITES had given two feasibility reports. The reports clearly indicate that the Chandigarh Metro project, which would connect the surrounding areas, is viable and should be implemented immediately.

No concrete steps have been taken to even prepare a detailed project report or conduct an on-the-ground feasibility study that could be taken up for consideration by the Centre. If the project has to come to fruition, it has to be taken up as a fully Centrally funded project, cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs and the entire cost — estimated about Rs 21,000 crore by the RITES report — would need to be borne by the Centre, he added.