Santosh Yadav, a senior IAS officer of 1995 batch of Uttar Pradesh cadre, has been appointed as Managing Director (MD) of Noida Metro Rail Corporation (NMRC).
With an outstanding technical background being an IITian from Roorkee, Yadav has been given the challenging assignment of a newly constituted PSU of the Uttar Pradesh Government — NMRC — which has undertaken the ambitious project of the expansion of Metro line from Noida to Greater Noida on the stretch of 31 kilometre. The appointment orders were issued on Tuesday.
The future plan of Noida-Greater Noida extension line is to boost the activities in the institutional areas of Greater Noida. In the absence of an efficient bus service, the residential areas of Greater Noida have failed to attract the plot allottees to start living there. The NMRC has the challenge to provide them with cheap transportation and to make the Metro service on this stretch viable.
“Our efforts would be to provide the cheap and best transport service in residential and institutional areas of Greater Noida so that common man would be able to commute between the two cities. This will give a boost to the service sector. If we fail to bring the tariff substantially down for the common man, we shall go for contracting to build new infrastructure for Metro lines in other cities of the State and across the country. We will skill our engineers to compete with other PSUs and private companies like DMRC which is constructing the Metro lines from Noida to Greater Noida and Noida to Indirapuram in Ghaziabad,” Yadav told The Pioneer over telephone.
“With the growing population in the cities of Uttar Pradesh, specialised services are needed to strengthen to meet the demand. I am sure the NMRC would be able to achieve this,” added Yadav.
Yadav, posted as the additional resident commissioner in Delhi, has gone as the election observer in Uti in Karnataka. He will take charge as the MD of Rs6,400-crore budget NMRC after returning from there.
The senior officer of Joint Secretary-level in the Union Government, Yadav has been chairman of GDA, Commissioner of Meerut division, Chief Executive Officer of Yamuna Expressway, District Magistrate of Aligarh, Muzaffarnagar during his 21-year service in India’s elite service as an IAS officer. Yadav had maintained an outstanding career during his posting of challenging assignments. Importantly, he had been the District Magistrate of Ghaziabad when Noida and Ghaziabad were one administrative unit.
“I will join the new posting after returning from Karnataka,” said Yadav to The Pioneer.