Despite being flooded with a number of proposals for Metro projects by many cities, the Ministry of Urban Development has decided not to grant sanction or approval to new ones until the Metro Rail Bill 2017 is passed.
“In some cities, there was no need of metro rail but a proposal has been submitted. Similarly, some of them submitted proposals without examining/checking traffic mobility plan,” sources said. The Centre bears 50 per cent financial burden of the Metro project.
“The State Governments would have to explore all alternative modes of transport under the Comprehensive Mobility Plan of the city before proposing metro project,” sources said.
Recently, the Ministry returned the proposal for a project in Vijayawada as it was felt that there was no need for a metro there and asked the State Government to explore other modes of mass transportation.
The Ministry has drafted the proposed Metro Rail Bill 2017 to push further privatisation of urban infrastructure. The Bill also proposes to privatise metro rail administration and once it’s done, it will be allowed to take up property development and commercial activities to cover costs.
The Bill also proposes to make third party assessment for every new metro project mandatory in future. Besides, the States would have to ensure that all alternate modes of mass transport have been explored under the Comprehensive Mobility Plan of the city before proposing the project.
The new Metro Rail policy will be applicable to all metro projects across the country including Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation, Chennai Metro Rail limited, Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation, Mumbai Metro, Jaipur Metro, Kochi Metro, Vizag Metro, Vijayawada Metro, Ahmedabad Metro, lucknow Metro, Nagpur Metro and Pune Metro .
To bring Metros under the Ministry of Urban Development so that States can take them up independent to the railways, high-powered Ministerial panels permitted Tramways Act and this later transformed to the Central Metro Construction Act and Central Metro Operations and Maintenance Act.
So far, different Acts have been adopted by the States for Metro Rail projects. The Delhi Metro, for instance, followed the Kolkata Metro Act because only railways were allowed to build rail-based transport systems under the Railways Act.
The draft Bill proposes a Metro Fare Regulatory Authority to be formed to help States have a template to decide fares. Since the Commissioner of Rail Safety also doubles up as the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety for safety clearances, administrative restructuring and strengthening the office was also being looked at.
At present, 326 km of metro rail is in operation in the country, more than 500 km of projects are at various stages of implementation and over 600 km projects are under consideration. The Metro projects in operation include Delhi-NCR (212 km), Bengaluru (33 km), Chennai (20 km), Mumbai Metro line 1 (11.40 km), Mumbai Monorail Phase 1 (9 km), Jaipur (9 km) and Kolkata (27.39 km) and Rapid Metro Gurgaon (5.10 km).