UT set to review Metro project

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 29

The UT Administration is reviewing the Metro project scrapped by the Home Minister’s Advisory Council a year ago.

Sources said UT Adviser Manoj Kumar Parida had called a meeting of officials of Punjab, Haryana and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to discuss the project.

At the meeting, the officials will review the status of the project and will also explore the possibility of reviving the project.

The Administration is considering various options to solve the traffic problem in the city. Parida said the Administration was working on short and long-term plans to end the traffic chaos in the city. He said the Metro project had not moved forward in the past three years. It was only on paper since the signing of an MoU between Haryana, Punjab and the UT.

“We need to take views of neighboring states before taking a decision,” he said

Sources said if Punjab and Haryana agreed to the project, the issue might be taken up in the north zone inter-state council meeting, to chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The work on the Metro project was started in 2006 and the DMRC prepared a detailed project report in 2012. A 37-km Metro line was proposed for the city, while the total track length of 7.8 km was planned for Punjab and 6.41 km for Panchkula. The project could not see the light of the day after Kirron Kher, Member of Parliament, opposed it and instead favoured monorail for the City Beautiful.

Work started in 2006 

• Initial work on the Metro project started in 2006 
• DMRC prepared a detailed project report for it in 2012
• The initial project cost, including land cost and taxes, was estimated to be around  Rs 10,900 crore