Vizag metro rail project under Centre’s consideration, says BJP State president Madhav

State BJP president P.V.N. Madhav on Tuesday said the Centre was closely examining several parameters, including commuter traffic patterns, financial viability, and return on investment, before granting its final approval to the Visakhapatnam Metro Rail project.

Addressing the media at the party office here, Mr. Madhav said a number of metro rail projects in the country were currently incurring financial losses, and hence the Centre was exercising caution while taking a decision.

Mr. Madhav said that in general, the residents of Visakhapatnam were not heavily dependent on public transport systems, which he felt was a major disadvantage.

Mr. Madhav further said once the Bhogapuram international airport becomes operational, Visakhapatnam would be better connected with Vizianagaram and Anakapalli districts, which would significantly enhance regional connectivity, and there would be need for public transport system like the metro rail.

He noted that the State government had already submitted a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the Visakhapatnam Metro Rail project, and the proposal was currently under consideration by the Central government.

He further said that 14 Road Over Road (ROR) projects had been sanctioned for Visakhapatnam, while 118 sanctioned for the State.

Awareness meets

Mr. Madhav said about 25,000 meetings would be held across the State to create awareness about Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (VB-G RAM G) from January 8. He accused the Congress leaders of spreading misinformation on the programme and stated that the MGNREGS had a lot of irregularities.

BJP Visakhapatnam district president M.N.M. Parasurama Raju was present.