Hyderabad: The Congress on Sunday charged that the delay in the execution of Hyderabad Metro Rail and cost escalation of Rs 4,000 crore was due to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.
TPCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy said the Metro Rail was conceived and executed by the previous Congress government.
Giving a powerpoint presentation at Gandhi Bhavan, Mr Reddy and chief spokesperson Dasoju Sravan explained various issues connecting to Metro Rail since 2012.
Mr Reddy said neither the TRS government nor the BJP government at the Centre had made any significant contribution to the project. Mr Rao had acted as a “trouble maker”, he said.
He said former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy had secured approval for Metro Rail from the Centre in 2007 and inaugurated Metro Rail Bhavan during his tenure. He said after Maytas dropped out of the project, the Kiran Kumar Reddy government signed the concession agreement on September 4, 2010, and work was launched on December 25, 2012.
“The project cost got escalated by over Rs 4,000 crore and two-and-a-half years were lost. Is it not criminal waste of public money and is KCR not responsible for this,” he asked. He also found fault with Mr Rao for not inviting the Opposition parties for the HMR launch.
He said the ticket fares were in violation of tariff agreement. He said there was a 300 per cent increase in the upper slab, and the number of slabs increased from six to 10.
Dr Sravan, showing an extract from the L&T annual report, which stated, “As there have been delays from the government’s side in providing RoW (Right of Way), the company has applied to the government for interim extension of time of scheduled completion date up to November 2019.”
He also produced a letter that Mr Rao had written to Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy objecting to Metro Rail destroying historical monuments, heritage and culture of the city and had sought change of alignment of Corridor-2. However, becoming Chief Minister, Mr Rao delayed the project for over two years before agreeing to implement the original plan.
