Chennai: The centre will come out with a new metro rail policy for future projects, in line with the government-approved national policy on transit-oriented development (TOD), union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said in Chennai on Sunday.
“The Centre is formulating a new metro rail policy to enable innovative finance such as land value capture, transit-oriented development for new metro rail projects,” Naidu said. This will form a mandatory requirement for all new metro projects in the country, he added.
Naidu on Sunday flagged off the first underground metro rail service from Tirumangalam to Nehru Park in Chennai, in the presence of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami.
Naidu said the centre has standardized critical specifications of rolling stock and signalling systems of metro rail for promoting standardization and indigenization. He said the government was also planning to roll out a “green urban mobility” scheme, aimed at improving overall travel facilities in cities by providing last mile connectivity through non-motorized transport like pedestrian pathways and bicycle sharing.
Referring to the new metro line in Chennai, Naidu said 28 km of a total length of 45 km in Phase 1 of the project will now be operational. “This project was sanctioned by Government of India at a cost of Rs14,600 crore. The government has so far released about Rs11,301 crore for the Chennai Metro project,” he said.
With Sunday’s launch of the line, around 341 km of metro rail has become operational in New Delhi, Gurgaon, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Jaipur and Mumbai. “Around 529 km are at present under construction in places like Delhi, NCR, Kolkata, Chennai, Jaipur, Mumbai, Kochi and Ahmedabad,” Naidu said.