Title - Muttemwar seeks more funds for metro rail

NAGPUR: City MP Vilas Muttemwar on Wednesday raised in Parliament the issue of funding for the proposed metro railway project for the city. He drew the attention of the House to the matter under section 377.While stressing the urgent need for an efficient and fast public transportation system in the city, Muttemwar said the population is growing at a fast pace with migration from villages to the city.It has already crossed three million-mark and is projected to touch 4 million by year 2020, he said. As a result, traffic on the city roads has also grown by leaps and bounds creating chaos on the main streets. With further population influx and heterogeneous nature of personal vehicles traffic, situation could only worsen in coming years.The idea of mass rapid transport system for every city with over 20 lakh population was mooted in 2004 by the then President APJ Abdul Kalam. It was later adopted by the UPA government which has decided to take up mass transport like metro rail or monorail projects under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission of the Union government. In March addressing the joint session of Parliament President Pratibha Patil also mentioned the need for mass rapid transport for cities.The metro rail project plan is now proposed for the city and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has been commissioned to prepare a detailed project report for it. Now, Muttemwar has raised a pertinent issue of funding viability for the project. Under the JNNURM, only 20% of the project cost is provided as viability gap fund while the state government contributes 10%. However, he has said that this total 30% of viability fund may not be sufficient for the city metro rail to get going. Hence he has demanded that the Centre's share be hiked to 40% to attract private developers under the PPP model.Under the JNNURM, only 20% of the project cost is provided as viability gap fund while the state government contributes 10%. However, Muttemwar said that this total 30% of viability fund may not be sufficient.