Nagpur: Phase I of Nagpur Metro may never be completed as the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) have refused to pay their remaining shares, which amount to over Rs550 crore.
A source in MahaMetro said that central government had paid its full share of the project. "We have also received the entire foreign loan amount. State government has to pay Rs435.34 crore. It has approved Rs184 crore, which we will get soon. It has promised to make allocation for the balance amount in the coming budget. However, NMC and NIT are not paying their share," he added.
NIT and NMC both have 5% shares in the Rs8,680 crore project. Their total shares were Rs434 crore each.
NIT is still to pay Rs191.09 crore to MahaMetro. Some days ago the then NIT chairperson Sheetal Ugale had written to the state government, asking to waive its share in the Nagpur Metro project. Ugale stated that NIT had been dissolved and hence had no source of revenue. This happened before the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government scrapped the previous government’s decision to scrap NIT.
NMC is supposed to to pay balance of Rs367.37 crore to MahaMetro. Mayor Dayashankar Tiwari told TOI that NMC would not pay its share in cash. "We have given a lot of land to MahaMetro for commercial exploitation. This more than covers our share," he said.
The MahaMetro official however, pointed out that the projects to come up on these lands like Yeshwant Stadium, Cotton Market etc were not part of Nagpur Metro project. "NMC has just signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with us for developing these lands. A lot of formalities remain. It will take time to appoint a private operator and more time before he pays premium," he said.
NMC administration recently doubled the development charges with retrospective effect from July 2016. It plans to send additional demand notes to builders and house owners whose building plans were sanctioned after June 2016. However, collecting money through this method will take months.
MahaMetro has set a target of completing the Nagpur Metro project by December 2021 and hence needs money in the next few months. "If we are unable to pay our contractors, why will they complete the project? NMC and NIT should have made provisions in their budget every year for paying their 5% share. State government has told them to pay their share in instalments but they are not willing," said the official.