Commuters can expect full-fledged services of phase one of the Multi Modal Transit Service (MMTS) in the twin cities in a year's time with the government finally clearing the Rs.22 crore payment for procuring the pending six rakes or trains.
The trains, each consisting of nine coaches, will be manufactured at the Railways' Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai. The payment was pending with the Finance Department for quite sometime now. Official sources said the department had cleared the proposal few days ago and it also got approved by the Chief Secretary and Chief Minister's Office.
An official order is to be issued pretty soon for the amount to be released. The ICF had earlier put the amount at Rs. 14.64 crore as there was already a sum of Rs. 13.80 crore available with it. Total cost for the six trains was estimated to be Rs. 56.88 crore with the Railways and government sharing the cost equally.
The amount escalated to Rs. 18 crore and to Rs. 22 crore due to the delay. Initially, the Government wanted GHMC to take a loan to pay ICF but the latter expressed its inability due to its own bad financial condition.
Senior Railway officials said that it will take at least a year for ICF to supply the new trains once the funds are disbursed as it was already busy in the manufacture of coaches for the Kolkata Metro. After the new coaches arrive, the number of daily services can be increased from the current 104 and more commuters can travel as some of the six coach trains will be augmented with nine coaches, officials explained.
Phase one project was taken up on 50:50 cost sharing venture of Indian Railways and State Government by strengthening the existing rail infrastructure at a total cost of Rs. 178 crore in 2003. Only 10 trains of the proposed 16 trains were delivered when the services were launched.
Despite issues of frequency, truncated trains and lack of feeder services, more than 1.3 lakh commuters travel by MMTS on the Secunderabad-Hyderabad-Lingampalli (28 km) and Secunderabad-Falaknuma (15 km) routes.
