‘Scrap Maytas deal’

HYDERABAD: The Citizens for a Better Public Transport in Hyderabad (CBPTH) has once again questioned several aspects of the Concession Agreement (CA) signed by the government with Maytas Metro Ltd., (MML) for building the elevated metro rail system in the city.

After perusing the CA document, it was “proved beyond doubt” that the project “promotes the interests of Maytas than public interest,” alleged CBPTH convener C. Ramachandraiah and others at a press conference on Wednesday. A CBPTH team had earlier studied the papers under the RTI Act few days ago.

The organisation maintained that the agreement should be “scrapped immediately” and the “issue of public transport should be debated.” Dr. Ramachandraiah pointed out that the GHMC alone stood to lose “hundreds of crores of rupees” in various taxes as no such levy was being imposed on the rail system. There was also no guarantee that more land would not be given to MML in future or if the estimated passengers per day (26.76 lakh a day) would fructify considering the poor record of Delhi Metro which was not even carrying 30 per cent of the projected commuters, he said.

The CBPTH felt there was a possibility of the lease period being extended due to lack of sufficient passengers and the scheduled completion date of March 2014 not being met.

Considering the delays in getting railways permission for various projects, it wondered if the plan of building an overhead metro line over the Secunderabad station would materialise when the SCR itself was proposing a world class facility.

The other issue faulted by CBPTH was that the government was not allowing a competing public transport system on metro rail corridors and agreeing for electricity tariff on commercial principles when the detailed project report prepared by Delhi Metro called for ‘no profit, no loss” basis.