Kolkata will soon get its first monorail project holding the hands of Burn Standard Company limited (BSCl) a public sector unit involved in manufacturing of railway wagons.
Soon a MoU for the Rs 4,000 crore project will be signed between the Government of West Bengal and the BSCl, sources quoting Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Wednesday.
Headquartered in Bengal BSCl was formed with the merger of Burn & Company founded in 1781 and Indian Standard Wagon founded in 1918. It was nationalised in 1975. According to sources in the State Secretariat at Nabanna BSCl will provide the infrastructure for the project while the Government will allocate lands. Though it was not confirmed as to where the project will come up sources said it could come up above the existing tram tracks.
Sources also said that plans had been finalised to discontinue the more than two century-old tramways in Kolkata.
Incidentally a similar project had been undertaken by the erstwhile left Government in 2008-2009 when talks were nearly finalised to construct a Rs 1,000 crore monorail project by a Canada-based firm with its office in Kolkata.
Subsequently a similar project worth Rs 2,000 crore was conceived in 2014 in partnership with another company which operates similar monorails in Mumbai, Sao Paulo and Kualalumpur. However it did not see the light of the day.
