Gurgaon Metro a year old, misses passenger target

Rapid Metro Gurgaon, India's first fully private rail system, has completes a year but couldn't achieve its daily target of over 60,000 commuters, an official said Thursday.

Rapid Metro Gurgaon was launched Nov 14 last year to further strengthen connectivity within the Cyber City area of this millennium city.

Cyber City has emerged as one of the busiest areas in Gurgaon, with the traffic volumes of almost 2-2.27 lakh vehicles entering and exiting the city daily.

Rapid Metro wanted to attract over 60,000 commuters daily but the highest ridership was 42,140 -- on July 17, 2014.

It has so far carried 7.9 million people.

Sanjiv Rai, CEO and MD of Rapid Metro Gurgaon, said: "We are happy to provide people with an efficient and high quality mode of transport.

"We are optimistic that more corporates come on board and join us in our endeavour to increase the usage of the public transport."

Rapid Metro connects with Delhi Metro at Sikanderpur station in Gurgaon.

The first phase of Rapid Metro, built at a cost of Rs.1,088 crore, has six stations spread over 5.1 km. Work on the second phase of Rapid Metro is in its full swing.

The second phase is tipped to start the operations by 2016.