The prestigious multi-billion dollar Hyderabad Metro Project found itself in the eye of a big political storm when a letter of l&T Metro Rail managing director — addressed to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao— found its way to the local media.
As a section of the Press reported that the l&T Metro was suffering a loss of `2 crore per day due to the orders of the Telangana Government to stop the work on certain routes as it wants an realignment, a flurry of activity took place on Wednesday.
l&T Metro managing director VN Gadgil met Chief Minister KCR and Chief Secretary Rajeev Sharma to discuss the issue.
According to the media reports, Gadgil in his letter had threatened to withdraw his company from the project in view of the huge losses and delay in the work.
Hyderabad Metro Rail managing director NVS Reddy also separately met the Chief Secretary and denied the reports that the work of Metro project had stopped on any route. “Work is progressing smoothly and we are confident of completing the project on time,” he said.
After meeting the Chief Minister, VN Gadgil told the media that correspondence between the Government and a company over such mega infrastructure was natural. “But we did not leak the letter to the media”, he said.
Denying that he had any complaint against the Government, he said, “the project was progressing with the full cooperation of the State Government and we are confident that the project will be completed on time”.
On the issue of changing the alignment of some of the routes of Metro, he said that he had no such information from the Government. It may be recalled that earlier Telangana Chief Minister KCR had asked l&T to change the route away from the State Assembly and also spare the Sultan Bazar market. Since then the work on these two routes has slowed down.
Gadgil said disputes during such massive projects were natural but the issues will be sorted out amicably.
The leakage of the letter to a couple of newspapers also sparked a war in the social media with twitterati going to town against alleged conspiracy to sabotage the Metro project and tarnish the image of the Telangana Government.
According to the reports, l&T was unhappy that its heavy machinery as well as the man power was not being fully used due to the confusion about the future of some routes and only 40% work could be done during last three months.