Without even considering the alignment change being sought by the Telangana Government, the cost escalation of the Hyderabad metro rail project is likely to go up to Rs.3,000 crore due to prevailing high interest rates, inflation, delay in announcing the appointed date of construction (July 2012) etc.
This was stated by L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad (L&TMRH) Chief Executive and Managing Director V.B. Gadgil during the press tour of the overhead station and depot facilities coming up at Uppal on Tuesday. The concessionaire which is building the largest ever Public, Private Partnership (PPP) mode metro project has spent Rs.5,000 crore till date.
He also made it clear that while works were on continuously from the last 25 months on various fronts without any “slowdown”, it was halted in “certain sections” for the last three months because of the Government’s insistence of changing the alignment at two places – before the Legislative Assembly and Sultan Bazar.
“We have received no official communication from the Government about alignment change,” Mr. Gadgil asserted.
Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) Managing Director N.V.S. Reddy, who was also present, chipped in to state that a technical feasibility study was on to look into the probable alternative routes and a report along with the financial implications will be presented to the Government to take appropriate action.
“L&TMRH will be informed about the same and based on the Concessionnaire Agreement (CA)’s clauses and penalties, the work will be taken up after additional funding required is stated. The Government is fully aware of the consequences and we have to follow its directions,” he said.
Mr. Gadgil said a project of this magnitude was bound to face several challenges and his firm was confident of overcoming them but any delay will add up to the cost. He also revealed that test runs are being carried out till Habsiguda every day and power lines till Mettuguda will also be done in three days to make the entire construction of stage one of the project – Nagole to Mettuguda (8 km) ready.
Projected cost of project at time of awarding the contract was Rs.12,132 crore and it is being built across three traffic corridors of 72 km: L.B.Nagar- Miyapur, JBS-Falaknuma & Nagole-Shilparamam-Raidurg.
