Nagpur: With ridership of Nagpur Metro reaching pre-Covid levels, MahaMetro has been able to rake in money. The revenue is being generated through leasing commercial spaces in its stations, wrapping its trains with advertisements, permitting use of the space below its viaduct for advertising, co-branding of Metro stations etc.
Other than this, non-ticket revenue is coming from transit oriented development (TOD), royalty on automatic fare collection (AFC) system etc.
A MahaMetro spokesperson said all small shops in Jhansi Rani Square, Institute of Engineers (IoE), Subhash Nagar had been leased out for nine years. “The tender for other stations has been floated. A miniplex is to be constructed at Jai Prakash Nagar Metro Station over an area of 2,000 square feet,” he added.
On advertisement rights within Metro stations, he said, “Deals for space admeasuring 1,000 sq ft at nine of the eleven Metro stations for five-year period have been finalized. Space admeasuring 3,000 sq ft has been already allotted.”
Plasto Limited and Glocal Mall have proposed to be part of co-branding at Chhatrapati Metro station and Sitabuldi Interchange.
One train has been wrapped with Bank of Maharashtra information papers for which the bank is paying MahaMetro. Similar tender for six other metro trains has been floated.
Tender for outdoor advertisement on the median from Airport Metro station to Sitabuldi Interchange has been floated. It involves allowing advertisement space of 11,000 sq ft. The agency which gets this tender will get to advertise on the median between successive spans.
It will also be responsible for taking care of trees planted on the median. The arrangement will be on revenue sharing basis. This is being done initially in Reach-I and will be later executed in Reach-III. A billboard measuring 6 feet by 8 feet can be installed as part of this arrangement.
A tender for Zero Mile building has been floated. It involves construction of 2.4 lakh sq ft and will be executed on revenue sharing model on public private partnership (PPP) basis. The tender is for hospitality sector. A seventeen-storey building is to be constructed there.
MahaMetro had signed an agreement with SBI for the common mobility card. It has earned Rs12 crore through SBI’s MahaCard.
The agency has benefitted from two decisions of the state government. The government had imposed a 1% additional cess on stamp duty, which was to be transferred to MahaMetro. An amount of Rs212.23 crore was collected by the revenue department till March 31, 2020, on behalf of MahaMetro. The state government temporarily abolished this cess from April 1 due to Covid.
An amount of Rs57.63 crore has been earned by MahaMetro through TOD till December 15. Under TOD policy, realtors can increase the floor to space index (FSI) of their building by paying a premium. Half of the premium amount is transferred to MahaMetro.
MahaMetro managing director Brijesh Dixit has set a target of earning more than 50% revenue from non-ticket sources. Only Hong Kong Metro has been able to achieve this target in the world.