The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the over Rs8,600-crore Nagpur Metro Rail Project and the long-pending proposal to install mobile towers at 2199 locations in Naxal-affected districts by BSNl at a cost Rs3,216 crore that will be borne by the Government.
The Nagpur Metro Rail Project will cover a length of about 38.21 km along two corridors — the North-South Corridor covering approximately 19.65 km from Automotive Square to MIHAN and the East-West Corridor covering approximately 18.55 km from Prajapati Nagar to lokmanya Nagar.
The proposed two alignments are expected to provide better connectivity to commuters. The Metro would traverse through some of the densest and traffic congested areas of Nagpur. The total project cost is Rs8,680 crore, with Government of India contributing Rs1,555 crore in the form of equity and subordinate debt.
The project will be implemented by the Nagpur Metro Rail Corporation limited which will be set up as a 50:50 jointly owned company of the Government of India and the Government of Maharashtra.As for mobile services in Naxal-affected areas, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said after the Cabinet meeting, “The Cabinet has approved setting up of 1,836 new base transmission towers (BTS) in left Wing Extremist affected districts. People in these areas and security forces have asked to improve the mobile connectivity in these districts.”
These mobile services will be provided in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.The establishment of mobile services would augment public communication facilities in backward regions besides providing a platform for mobile based information dissemination and easy access to governance and policing. He said 363 towers under the project have already been set up for which subsidy will be given from the Universal Services Obligation Fund.
The project implementation cost through the open tendering process is approximately Rs3568 crore against the revised cost estimate of approximately Rs3216 crore.