Low-cost ride in suburbs and smaller cities! Modi government plans to introduce Metro Neo

The Modi government is set to approve national standard specifications for Metro Neo! A no-frills, low-cost urban rail transit system, Metro Neo is aimed at cities with a population of less than 10 lakh or suburbs of bigger cities of India. According to officials, the approval from the centre paves the way for state governments as well as urban local bodies to design proposals as per their requirements. Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs was quoted in an IE report saying that the government is approving it as it will be beneficial, especially for the country’s smaller cities, as a cheap and no-frills Metro system.

With a 10-tonne axle load instead of the normal 17 tonnes, Metro Neo systems are lighter and smaller than conventional Metro trains. According to sources quoted in the report, Metro Neo is suitable for places where the one way traffic demand is nearly 8,000 passengers in peak hours. They further said that Metro Neo costs about 25 per cent of conventional systems but with similar facilities. Also, it is cheaper than the other budget option like Metrolite, which costs approximately 40 per cent of the normal Metro system.

According to officials, cities such as Telangana’s Warangal and Maharashtra’s Nashik have pitched for Metro Neo systems. While the plans of Warangal are still on the drawing board, the city of Nashik is planning a proposal of 33-km long stretch with as many as 30 stations, under Maharashtra Metro, which is being processed by the Ministry of Urban Affairs. Mishra said, the urban mobility’s modern concept is to move people instead of moving vehicles. As per the government’s blueprint, in the next five years, 910 kilometres of Metro projects of various kinds are proposed to be built across India, to take the total to around 1,600 kilometres.