KANPUR (Metro Rail News): Shiv Om Johri, assistant engineer, Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation (LMRC) said that the Kanpur Metro Rail project is finally set to start from October 2 with the construction of pillars for laying the metro track near the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-K).
He said Afcons Infrastructure Limited has bagged the contract for laying the metro track and setting up of nine stations. But the problem is that one of the key stakeholders, the Kanpur Development Authority (KDA), has expressed its inability in providing its share of Rs 100 crore for the project.
Meanwhile, SP Singh, secretary, KDA, said the financial health of the authority was bad after it built houses under the Prime Minister Housing Scheme. The authority had the responsibility of providing 40,000 houses to the people.
Efforts, he said, were being made to improve its fiscal strength with the sale of houses.
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“We have communicated to the state government about our financial issues,” he said.
As per the decision at the meeting held under the principal secretary, housing, Deepak Kumar, it was decided that the key stakeholders would contribute Rs 350 crore to the project. The total cost of the project was Rs 16,975 crore.
The Avas Vikas Parishad was asked to contribute Rs 200 crore, the KDA Rs 100 crore and UPSIDC Rs 50 crore.
Recently, LMRC managing director Kumar Keshav had said that three hostel buildings at Government Polytechnic would be demolished for the construction of the Metro Yard. The LMRC would bear the cost of the hostels’ demolition and shifting the students to a private hostel.
Meanwhile, people of the city have expressed enthusiasm as well as apprehension about the metro project.
Pankaj Bajpai, who runs a publishing house, said that since Kanpur is growing bigger and roads becoming clogged, the metro could help in decongestion. But he seeks a parallel public transport system.
Ram Sahaya, a student, Geet Shukla, a housewife, and several other people said with the metro, people would have cheaper and faster local transport service.
However, Raguraj Saran, leader of the retail shopkeepers union, Kalyanpur, felt the metro project would make a large number of people homeless as their ancestral houses, at prime locations near GT Road, would be demolished for laying the railway track.
Several small and medium commercial establishment owners would also lose their source of earning as their establishments would also be removed from the area of the proposed metro track, Saran said.
