RailEnquiry

The grim financial position of the country’s economy is all set to hit hard the metro expansion plans across the States.According to sources, in the Budget 2013-14 to be presented by the Government on Thursday, the Union Urban Development Ministry is likely to get just one-third of the fund it has sought from the Government for the expansion of the metro network across the country. While the Ministry asked for Rs 48,500 crore, it is likely to get Rs 1,54,300 crore only.The officials in the UD Ministry are fuming for half of the allocated funds will come through a loan from an international agency, JAICA (Japan International Corporation Agency). This has to be paid back by the State Governments seeking such funds.“This means, in actuality, we will be getting much less than what has been proposed to be sanctioned (Rs 48,500 crore) as most of it will come through the JAICA loan amount that in any case has to be returned back,” the officials said.

They also maintained that the Ministry has been persuading the Planning Commission  to delink the debt amount from the plan outlay to remove the ambiguity.

“We might have to reduce the number of metro lines of the ongoing projects or  defer some of the projects,” an official said.

UD Secretary Sudhir Krishna said they had been  intimated about the cut and written to . to the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission to reconsider their  decision as it would hit hard the metro projects that are critical to the growth and development of cities.

“In view of fund shortage, we have also decided to be open to the Private Public Partnership (PPP) model in case the States show interest,” he said.

However, sources said that the PPP would be a last resort as such projects has failed in Delhi and Rajasthan. The fund will be required for Delhi Metro Phase IV which has already been given the green signal while the Ministry is studying the proposed DPRs prepared for 12 cities while Metro rail projects were being implemented in seven cities covering a total network of length 476 km at a cost of over Rs 1.15 lakh crore.

UD Minister Kamal Nath had recently said that the government has decided to support preparation of Detailed Project Reports (DPR) for Metro rail in all 19 cities with a population of over two million.