SYNERGY
AMONGST PARTNERS OF DEVELOPMENT PROJECT IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS
OF DELHI METRO RAIL PROJECT-SHRI ADVANI
URBAN TRANSPORT POLICY TO
EXTEND METRO RAIL PROJECT TO MORE STATES IN NEXT SIX MONTHS-SHRI
ANANTH KUMAR
The Deputy Prime Minister, Shri L.K. Advani today
flagged off the trial run of the Delhi Metro Rail in the capital.
Union Minister for Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation,
Shri Ananth Kumar presided over the function which was attended
by the Minister of state for Urban Development Sri.O.Rajagopal,
Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Shri.Vijay Kapur,Chief Minister of
Delhi,Smt Sheila Dixit,Ambassador of Japan H.E.Hiroshi Hirabayashi,Union
Labour Minister Shri.Sahab Singh Verma,Minister of state (PMO)
Shri Vijay Goel ,senior officials of the central and state governments
and Managing Director of DMRC Shri.E.Sreedharan.
Speaking on this occasion, Shri Advani said that
a long standing dream of Delhities has come true because of the
"Synergy and Sahyog" demonstrated by both the Central Government
and Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi. Shri Advani
advised the partners in any development work to have such synergy
and less of adversarial role.
While complimenting the M.D of Delhi Metro Rail
Corporation Shri E.Sreedharan of Konkan Rail fame for the speedy
implementation of the project, Union Minister for Urban Development
and Poverty Alleviation, Shri Ananth Kumar said that this project
is the result of 17 studies funded by his ministry to prepare
Urban Transport Improvement Plans and announced that the Central
Government would come out with the National Urban Transport Policy
in the next six months. He called upon the State Governments to
cooperate with the Centre to launch Metro Rail Projects in Cochin,
Trivandrum, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Kanpur,
Jaipur, etc. He said that this is very essential because in a
city like Delhi with 4 million automobiles every individual is
consuming pollutants of 300 mg/day.
Shri Ananth Kumar said that the Delhi Metro is
neither a Central nor a State Corporation and both the governments
are just facilitators of the Metro Project. But he added that
the centre has ensured extremely soft Japanese loan at an interest
rate of 2.3% to 1.8% with a repayment period of 20 years. Shri
Kumar also said that this project is shielded from the impact
of fluctuations in foreign currency market. He said that the centre
would encourage more such projects with equity of 13 per cent
each from central and state governments and the balance being
accessed from the market.
It may be noted that the Phase-1 of the Delhi
MRTS project was approved by the union government in 1996 at an
estimated cost of Rs 4860 crore and after inclusion of the recently
approved Connaught Place-Dwarka corridor it is estimated to be
Rs 12370 crore.
