"financing of metro projects may be considered only after comprehensive evaluation of other alternatives and metro fares that need to be revised every year" This is a basic principle which should be followed before introduction of a first Metro train in any country. But we seem to realise it now, when proposal/construction for Metro construction has been indiscriminately cleared/started for about 20 cities in the country!!
Also, the estimated fares should be within the paying power of the citizens of a city before starting the construction of metro project. Rather a survey is must that are the people willing to pay for the estimated fares the metro travel?.
Metro...
more... train is a very costly affair with cost of construction going as a high as Rs. 200-350 crore Rs per KM!. It need a very high passenger traffic to the tune of tens of thousands per hour just in order to recover the operational cost, leave aside the interest payment of very high initial costs.
Some of the factors which are very important for a city to merit a Metro construction
(1) Population, higher the population more is the expected traffic flow which could give enough revenue to recover costs of metro operation as well as repayment of huge loans taken for Metro. As per earlier reports, Metro Train is not likely to be feasible for a city less than 3 million population. Where as Metro has already been cleared for much smaller cities by the over enthusiastic officials/ politicians.
(2) Paying capacity or per capita income of the citizens. Metro is a highly capital intensive and give a higher class travel (air conditioned) travel, so the fare is likely to be much higher than the bus or suburban fares.
(3) Cities having very high fraction of private car and pvt. taxi users deserve the Construction of new Metro Train Project. These paxs are expected to switch over to Metro for the convenience, time and money saving at the cost of privacy.
(4) Life style/ spending habits of the citizens. City like Chandigarh may deserve a Metro more than the other cities of similar size due to typical life style and higher per capita income. Reverse is Kolkata which have respectable percapita income but the relatively conservative life style/ spending habits make it less lucrative for Metro as compared to other cities of similar size.
(5) Concentration of international tourists/ high spending tourists in a city add to the probability of success of the city.
(6) Cities having a higher concentration of youth (students), working classes, higher education/literacy adds to the probability of success. Education centers and IT cities like Bangalore, Pune, Secunderabad, Delhi, Mumbai etc very much fulfil such conditions.
(7) Existing facilities of mass transport in the city for the intracity travel. Existence of suburban trains, vast network of roads, Bus rapid transit systems etc have to be taken into account. Metro arrive later in Mumbai due to existing of high capacity and efficient suburban train system in addition to good bus services provided by BEST although over a grossly inadequate road network. But for Bangalore and Pune, the due to non existence of good suburban network or extensive Bus rapit Transit Systems, the necessity of Metro train is very much pronounced.
(8) Non fare revenue is an important source of revenue for Metro Rail systems to survive, hence the city must be a commercial/ industrial centre as well so that a substantial revenue can be generated by commercial exploitation of station area so as to ensure the financial viability of Metro operation.
Pune, one of the fastest growing Metropolitan area of the country, fits the bill very well (as compared to other cities where metro train project already under construction) when evaluated on above criteria. Its current population is around 60 lacs. In order to arrest haphazard growth around the city, the Metro Region has been expanded from 3300 SqKM to about 6620 SqKM, with an estimated population of whopping 1 Crore.
Pune could not get metro construction/train started till date mainly due to the fact that it is not a state capital and hence not well taken care of by state govt. Where as other state govts have successfully pushed Metro Projects for their capital cities which are less than half/quarter the importance/size, the deserving case of Pune is gathering dust and now this advisory by Urban Ministry!! Metro train
Projects costing in Rs. several 10s of thousands of crores, can not be treated like we open the door and projects start flowing in and we decide to close the door and no further new metro project come. They have to be taken after studying merit of a case. We don't have luxury of the theoretical thinking of bringing transformation of our Metro Cities. We have more urgent need, to debottleneck the the urban traffic crawling at an incredibly low avg. speeds as low as 6-12 kmph at many sections! which have made the life of citizens a hell. Cities shall automatically get transformed if we can debottleneck such choke points and make them commutable without any difficulties.
Were there any serious thoughts before clearing so many proposals for so many cities many of which are likely to be a financial liability on Govt/ municipal corporations? Today Successful Delhi Metro is an exceptional case, and even more than 3 decade old Kolkata Metro continues to bleed IR very heavily even today (thanks to Mr. ABA Gani Khan Choudhary). IR has now become wise and stopped undue meddling in the Metro projects which is basically a city subject with active involvement of Local Municipal Corporation/ State Govt/ Ministry of Urban Development.
