“Metro Rail is not getting the required support from the State government,” said ‘Metro man’ E. Sreedharan on Friday.
He said the State should decide whether it wants Metro Rail or Mono Rail for the city.
“Hanging on to Mono Rail and not supporting Metro Rail is not a correct policy. They should opt for the Metro Rail since it is the cheapest and quickest. Many other cities like Coimbatore, Madurai and Tiruchirapalli too need it,” he said.
Mr. Sreedharan, principal advisor of the Kochi Metro Rail project and former director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, was in the city to deliver the Dr. Pitchai Endowment Fund for Environmental Engineering lecture at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras.
He said Mono Rail is not ideal since it is highly expensive and its reliability and safety is less, when compared to the Metro Rail.
“The operational cost is nearly 50 per cent more than that of Metro Rail. It is costly because there are only three players all over the world; so, there is hardly any competition. I wrote to the Tamil Nadu government thrice asking them not to pursue the Mono Rail project,” he said.
He also said phase-II of Metro Rail should start before phase-I is completed. “The construction of both phases should have been running parallel by now,” he said.
Mr. Sreedharan said he was not pleased with the construction of Chennai Metro.
It should be implemented causing the least amount of inconvenience to the public.
“It is possible and it is your duty. Till about a year back, we were advising Chennai Metro Rail Limited. We were not at all happy with the way it was handled,” he said.
