Bihar Cab approves constitution of SPV for Patna metro rail

The Bihar cabinet Tuesday gave its nod for constituting "Patna Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (PMRCL)" as special purpose vehicle (SPV) for implementation of the metro rail project in the capital.

The cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar also approved Rs 2,000 crore as PMRCL authorised capital.

Briefing mediapersons here, Cabinet Secretariat department's Principal Secretary Sanjay Kumar said that Urban Development and Housing Department's Principal Secretary will be the head of SPV while representatives of Finance, Road, Transport and Energy departments will be the members of its board of directors.

The state government would nominate the Managing Director of the SPV.

Notably, RITES has submitted the revised Detailed Project Report (DPR) to the Urban Development and Housing department about a week ago, department sources said adding that DPR would now be put up before the state cabinet for approval.

Once the DPR is approved by the state cabinet, it would be sent to the centre for the approval, the sources said.

A preliminary DPR for metro rail project was approved by the state cabinet in February 2017 but it was required to be revised after the Centre came up with a new metro policy.

The metro rail envisages two corridors in the first phase. The first corridor will be between Saguna Mor-Bailey Road-Patna Junction- Mithapur bus stand while the second corridor will be from Patna junction to proposed bus stand at Bairiya on Patna-Gaya road.

In an another important decision, the cabinet sanctioned Rs 127.53 crore from Bihar Contingency Fund for the payment of dues on account of salary to the employees of 15 closed sugar mills of Bihar State Sugar Corporation Ltd, Principal Secretary Sanjay Kumar said.

It also gave its nod to the Building Construction Department's proposal for constructing "Bapu Tower" on a plot measuring five acres at Gardanibagh area of the state capital, he said adding that the tower will be constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 84.49 crore.

Bapu Tower will be a G+6 structure which will host cultural and literature functions, besides there will be a museum on Gandhi's life, he said.

The cabinet also approved Building Construction Department's proposal for redevelopment and renovation of "Vikas Bhawan and Vishveshwariya Bhawan"- the secretariat buildings- at an estimated cost of Rs 61.46 crore and Rs 61.62 crore respectively.

The cabinet also approved a proposal under which the payment of ex-gratia amount of Rs 5 lakh to elected representatives of three tier Panchayati raj institution and gram kutchery can be made at the District Magistrate levels, if these representatives die due to natural calamity, violence, criminal incidents or in accidents, Principal Secretary said.

A total of 24 decisions were taken at the cabinet meeting.