India to invest Rs2 lakh crore in metro projects over 10 years

Delhi Metro Rail Corp (DMRC), managing director, E Sreedharan said at a function in Bangalore on Friday that India would invest Rs2 lakh crore in the metro rail system over the next 10 years.  He added that the mass transport system would be taken up for eight more cities over the period.
 
Shreedharan was speaking to the media on the sidelines a function held to mark the roll out of India's first standard gauge metro cars. He added that Rs80,000 crore had been invested or committed to ongoing metro rail projects so far.

He said that in all an investment of Rs2 lakh crore would be made in the country on metro rail in the next 10 years.

He added that in addition to Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai, projects would also be launched in Pune, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, Kochi, Indore and Chandigarh.

He said that given the fact that BEML R&D centre was coming up in Bangalore, it would be in a better position to bag metro projects. He added the R&D centre would bring down indigenisation costs with coaches made by BEML costing nearly 10 per cent less at Rs5.5 crore a coach, than imported ones. 

He said with a European metro major Embrair was set to enter the country soon, BEML will have a competitor soon. Embrair is setting up a facility in Baroda.

On launch of metro project in Kochi in Kerala, he said the proposal was awaiting the centre's clearance. He added that the state government had cleared the proposal and handed it over to the DMRC for execution on a turnkey basis. On Hyderabad metro he said the state was still in favour of Build, Operate and Transfer mode involving the private sector.