M K Stalin Writes to Modi on Rejection of Metro Rail Projects

 Chennai: Expressing disappointment and anguish over the rejection of the proposals for Metro Rail systems in Coimbatore and Madurai, Chief Minister M K Stalin told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the purported reasons mentioned in the communication from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) were not appropriate and urged him to reconsider the decision.

In his letter to Modi on Saturday, the Chief Minister said Tamil Nadu, being the most urbanised State in the country with a high per-capita private vehicle ownership, needed high capacity public transport alternatives in all its large growth engine cities.

Looking forward to Modi's personal intervention in the issue as the two cities were cultural hubs of the State, he had advised the Department of Special Initiatives to submit detailed justifications on the issues raised by MoHUA, he said.

Urging the Prime Minister to instruct MoHUA to review the decision of returning the proposals, he said that he was ready to meet him at New Delhi with his team to explain the issues in detail.

On the reasons cited for the rejection of the projects, he said that if the two million population criteria was applied uniformly, may Metros in Tier-II cities like Agra, Indore and Patna might not have materialized at all while the population of Coimbatore LPA area had exceeded 2 million way back in 2011 itself and in the case of Madurai too, the expected population was likely to exceed it now.

‘Considering the high priority accorded to these two projects, we were continuously following up with the relevant Ministry. I am sure that you can recollect that I had personally impressed upon you on these projects when I had met you on May 24 and July 26 and submitted a memorandum on our priority requests,’ he said.

In such a backdrop, the rejection of the request had taken the State by complete surprise and it has created deep resentment amongst the people of the two cities over the rejection of their deserving needs as compared to similar projects sanctioned in other States, he said.

The selective application of the two million population criterion to Tamil Nadu’s proposal had created an impression of discrimination against the State’s cities and Union Government needed to dispel it by treating our cities on par with cities like Agra, Indore and Patna, he said, adding that the adequacy of ridership for the project in Coimbatore had been arrived at by comparing with the ridership of Chennai.

Since ridership depended on multiple factors, such a view was not appropriate as both Coimbatore and Madurai had commuting patterns different from Chennai and the Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) for Coimbatore prepared by RITES after detailed traffic studies had clearly projected the need for MRTS in the proposed sectors, he said.

For Madurai also, the CMP of 2011 had proposed BRT but had clearly mentioned that the rail-based system be also considered.The DPR studies had made independent assessments of traffic projections that justified the need for Metro Rail corridors taking the relevant factors adequately taken into consideration, Stalin said.

With reference to the availability of right of way, it was well known that Metro Rail projects had necessitated acquisition of private lands in most cities in India and Tamil Nadu was fully conscious of the need for balancing social costs due to land acquisition with the long-term socio-economic benefits from MetroRail projects, he said.

They had been offering compensation that met the expectations of the land owners in the current project and would ensure that land availability would not be a hindrance for the projects at Coimbatore and Madurai cities, he said.