Nitish asks officials to start work on Patna metro at the

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday asked the officials to start work on Patna Metro project at the earliest.

"The work on Patna metro be started at the earliest. Adequate action should be ensured to carry out land acquisition for proposed metro corridor," Kumar said in a release here.

The CM directed the officials of Urban Development and Housing department to begin the work after its Principal Secretary Chaitanya Prasad gave a presentation on 'Patna Metro Rail Project' here at 1, Aney Marg, the CM's official residence.

Prasad updated Kumar about progress the project has made so far, it said.

It may be noted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on February 17, 2019 laid the foundation stone for the long awaited Patna metro rail project at a function held at Barauni in Begusarai district.

The Rs 13,000 crore metro project will give new speed to Patna city, he had said.

The Bihar cabinet had on October 9, 2018 paved the way for rolling out the metro rail in Patna by approving the "Detailed Project Report (DPR)" and sending it for the Centre's approval.

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 one will be from Patna junction to proposed bus stand at Bairiya on Patna-Gaya road, sources said.

Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, Urban Development and Housing Minister Suresh Sharma, Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar, Development Commissioner Subhash Sharma, Urban Development and Housing department's Principal Secretary Chaitanya Prasad, CM's Principal Secretary Chanchal Kumar, his counterpart in Finance department S Siddhartha and a host of other senior officials attended the event.