Three months after the TS Government wrote to L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad (L&TMRH), building the metro rail, to “contemplate” proposed alignment changes in three sites across two corridors, it once again pressed the issue.
On Tuesday, Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma asked L&TMRH CEO & MD V.B. Gadgil at the special task force of senior officials, to prepare the feasibility report for alignment changes at Sultan Bazar, Legislative Assembly and the old city, at the earliest. The concessionaire was also instructed, to come out with financial implications of taking up the alignment changes.
Proposed changes First two changes are under corridor two – Jubilee Bus Station and Falaknuma where the elevated metro line will bypass Sultan Bazar towards Tilak Park, go beside Koti Women’s College and behind Osmania Medical College, effectively reducing the original distance by 0.7 km.
Secondly, from Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station, instead of taking the Darulshifa route, the TS government on ‘advice’ of ally Majlis Party wants it through Puranapul, Muslimjung, Zoo Park, Kalapathar, Misrigunj and Shamsheergunj, which means an extra length of 3.2 km than originally envisaged.
Third is on corridor one – L.B. Nagar to Miyapur, the line is to be taken behind the Assembly alongside the rail tracks and on to the main road at Telugu University rather than in front of it, reducing distance by 15 metres. It also means 21 built piers at Lakdi-ka-pul have to be cut.
Senior government officials, seeking anonymity, claimed that L&TMRH has not submitted any report on the proposed alignment changes, either financial or technical, although it had informally conveyed that it will take a “few months” for such a report to be submitted. While the government is ready to pay any fee up to Rs.1,000 crore for the changes, L&TMRH apparently has more than double the sum on its mind. In any case, any such fee will be posed to the Independent Engineer Louis Berger to hammer out a solution or the arbitration route is staring in the face of both the parties.
