Centre's nod to metro schemes for three cities

The Centre has given its go-ahead to metro rail projects for Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore and would provide viability gap funding for the projects in various states, union Minister for Urban Development Jaipal Reddy said here today.

The choice of deciding about the nature of gauge to be adopted in the metro rail projects has been given to state governments, Reddy said.

In his inaugural address at Cityscapes 2006, a meet on urban infrastructure reforms with public-private linkages, being organised by the Ficci here, Reddy said metro rail projects in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bangalore can take off immediately.

The project proposals were pending, following the stand of Indian Railways that broad gauge should be adopted for metro rail projects while many state governments were preferring standard gauge.

The Centre has also cleared National Urban Transport Policy with a focus on "shifting the emphasis from personal transport to public transport," he said.

Referring to Rs 50,000 crore Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission launched in December last, Reddy said the state-governments should come forward with urban governance and services sector reforms linked with the project.

Less-developed states in the country should try to get more benefit from the project than the developed states, Reddy said.