Metro Rail Project awarded to L & T

The much-talked about rail project, the Hyderabad Metro Rail Project has been  awarded to Larsen and Toubro Limited.  This was decided on Wednesday at the  Cabinet meeting here.

The state Cabinet, which met on  Wednesday under the chairmanship of Chief Minister K Rosaiah, approved the recommendations of a three-member committee to award the Rs12,132 crore project to L&T that has emerged as the lowest bidder.   

L&T has sought Rs 1,458 crore as Viability Gap Funding--a one-time grant from the government to infrastructure projects undertaken through public private partnerships. The VGF amount would be released by the Government of India while the AP government would spend Rs 1,980 crore towards acquisition of 204 acres of land at two places in Hyderabad as well as relief and rehabilitation of the affected people.

The  first installment to be released for this project in the current financial year is Rs  500 crore. Ground work for the project is scheduled to commence in January 2011,  according to  Minister for  Information J  Geeta Reddy.

The project would be completed in five years, covering three high-density traffic corridors over a 70 km route. The traffic demand per day is estimated to be 15 lakh passengers in 2014, which may soar up to 22 lakh in 2024.