The much-awaited Lucknow Metro was finally inaugurated on Tuesday with BJP leaders describing it as a step towards developing the Uttar Pradesh capital as a Smart City.
The inaugural journey was flagged off by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The dignitaries, including Governor Ram Naik, also enjoyed a ride on the metro.
The Metro will be thrown open to the public from Wednesday with the 8.5 km stretch from Transport Nagar to Charbagh, dubbed the ‘Priority Corridor’, becoming operational.
Mr. Singh, who is also the Lok Sabha MP from Lucknow, dedicated the metro to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
While stating that the metro rail “has increased the smartness” of Lucknow, he said it was his dream to watch the city develop as a “model of public transportation” in the country.
Mr. Adityanath hailed the Narendra Modi government at the Centre for its contribution to the project. The CM said the Lucknow Metro was in sync with Mr. Modi’s dream of developing metro rail in 50 cities in the next three years and providing a better, cheaper, pollution-free and modern transportation system to the people.
Project cost
The estimated cost of the 22.878 km Phase-1A of the project is ₹6,928 crore, a joint venture of the State and Central governments. Mr. Adityanath was quick to remind the audience of the role of the Modi government in availing a loan assistance of 450 million Euros (₹3,502 crore) from the European Investment Bank (EIB) for the Phase-1A project.
The CM also said that his government would now work to develop metros in seven other cities in U.P. — Kanpur, Agra, Varanasi, Jhansi, Meerut, Allahabad and Gorakhpur, his political turf.
To smoothen the process, the State government would consolidate all metro corporations into a central one called the Uttar Pradesh Metro Corporation.
The development of the Metro began in Sept. 2014.
