LMC suggests multipurpose ticket for travel in Metro rail Responding to mayor Dinesh Sharmas complaint that Nagar Nigam officials and its corporators are being ignored in the process of Metro planning in the city, the Metro cell on Thursday made a detailed presentation on the project covering its routes, stations, financial model etc., before representatives of the local body.This was the first time when Metro cell shared the detailed project report (DPR) with Nagar Nigam and invited ideas from mayor and corporators to improve its services. Mayor Dinesh Sharma and municipal commissioner RK Singh have already been made stakeholders in the special purpose vehicle (SPV) -Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation (LMRC) formed to execute the project.LMCs contention was when Metro would be made underground, its major services like sewerage, water pipelines and drainage would be impacted. Hence the mayor, municipal commissioner, corporators and additional municipal commissioners should be made a part of all Metro proceedings.The presentation was attended by Metro cell chairman and housing secretary Rajiv Agarwal, mayor, municipal and additional municipal commissioner, corporator party leaders each from SP, BJP and Congress.The cell informed LMC that two corridors proposed are North-South (N-S) and East-West (E-W). The 23-km N-S corridor has already been approved by the state and Central governments, of which 19 km is proposed as elevated while the rest as underground. N-S corridor would start from PAC ground at Amausi up to Munshipulia crossing in Indiranagar.The E-W route has been proposed from Charbagh to Vasantkunj. Officials said many bottlenecks exist in the route and hence much planning needs to be done. Mayor and corporators suggested few of the challenges and probable solutions for them. Mayor said emphasis needs to be given on keeping the Metro premises clean and declaring its stations as no-smoking zones. He proposed that LMC should be given the revenues coming from outdoor advertisements displayed on Metro coaches and routes.Sharma enquired about LMCs share in the revenue sharing model and whether it is important to become stakeholder in LMRC to share the revenue. Metro cell chairman Agarwal said the project cost is worth Rs 1,200 crore, out of which 40% (Rs 4,800 crore) stake would be sold off by the government. Mayor suggested that whereever Nagar Nigam land are coming under the Metro project, shares should be given in proportion to the compensation LMC is entitled for in lieu of those lands.Mayor also suggested that buses and auto feeder services should be arranged only near those Metro stations which are less prone to traffic jams. He said that double feeder services should not be implemented at one place so that it doesnt cause road congestions. Either it should be a bus or an auto feeder service at each station. Also multipurpose tickets could be issued so that public can commute on train, bus and auto with the same ticket rather than running from pillar to post at each stoppage, he suggested. He also requested for free of cost operation of small battery-operated autos within station premises.LMC raised queries about underground services being affected by the Metro construction work. Agarwal said the underground tracks would be made about 20 metres below the ground level whereas utilities just run 3-4 metres below it. Hence no impact would be done to the underground services, traffic or roads. However, the municipal commissioner clarified that services around 200-300 metres of those places need to be realigned where underground Metro track would start from and exit at. Only those services may be impacted which lie near the entry and exit points of Metro track.Other recommendations were LMC should be made a part of the additional revenue sharing based on the patterns of Bangalore Metro and that people should be paid a fair compensation against the acquisition of private lands which would come under the project. Also, mayor emphasised that whatever damage is done to the city roads, drains, sewer and water pipelines, it should be immediately repaired with the metro funds to cause less inconvenience to the public. The burden should not be passed on to LMC and Jal Sansthan.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 03:11:18 +0000
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