Hyderabad: The Railway Board has directed the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) not to go ahead with the Multi Model Transport System (MMTS) phase II works in the Hyderabad- Secunderabad twin cities. The board said that unless the state government deposited its share, the works would not be taken any further. The state government has deposited only Rs 60 crores of its share of Rs 545 crores.
At a cost of Rs 816.55 crores, the state government took up the MMTS phase II project. According to the agreement between the state government and the Railways, the state government had to bear two-thirds of the project cost and the Railways, one-third.
Accordingly, the state government’s share was Rs 544.36 crores and the Railways share, Rs 272.19 crores. The total expenditure incurred so far in this project was Rs 507.15 crores. But the state government has provided only Rs 60 crores against its expenditure share of Rs 338.1 crores. The Railway officials said that this meant that their department had already spent Rs 447.15 crores, which was much more than the total railway share of Rs 272.19 crores.
Recently the South Central Railway officials held a meeting with TS Chief Secretary SK Joshi and discussed the status of the ongoing railway project.
The railway officials told the Chief Secretary that the state government had been requested time and again, to provide its total share of Rs 484.36 crores or at least Rs 378.1 crores.
Of this, Rs 278.1 crores is the share of expenditure already incurred and Rs 100 crores is the expenditure for the current year.
But the state government did not deposit any funds. They informed the Chief Secretary that the Railway board had advised the Rail Vikas Nigam (RVNL), which is the project executing agency, not to proceed, unless sufficient funds were deposited by the state government. The Railway officials said that the project was not progressing due to the non-release of funds by the state government.
Under MMTS Phase II, sections are proposed between Tellapur – Ramachandrapuram (5.75 km) and Moulali-Ghatkesar (12.2 Kms). The MMTS connectivity to the International Airport at Shamshabad has yet to be finalized.
