Revanth for Probe into L&T Metro Rail Doles

Hyderabad: Firing the first salvo against the alleged corruption in the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) regime, Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on Wednesday ordered an investigation into doling out benefits to metro rail concessionaire L&T Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited without the company completing the stretch between MGBS at Imlibun and Falaknuma.

The Chief Minister also dropped hints about not going ahead with the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led government’s decision to scrap GO 111. Ignoring the threat to the environment, in particular the twin water bodies of Himayat Sagar and Osman Sagar, the previous government had decided in principle to free thousands of acres of land from restrictions on development. Revanth Reddy wondered how a metro corridor was planned along Outer Ring Road (ORR), as the majority of which falls under GO 111 because of which the scope for development is very limited.

Expressing displeasure over doling out benefits to corporates, Revanth Reddy wanted thorough examination of the concession agreement with L&T, GMR Hyderabad International Airport and supplementary concession agreement of metro rail to protect state interests. He also indicated making use of the vacant space on airport  premises for metro alignment stating that “entire land belongs to the government.”

At a review meeting on the metro rail project, he also took a major decision to build an international standard township at Kandukur, scrapping the earlier plan to set up pharma city. “The polluting pharma park should be located elsewhere and the metro connectivity proposed till the airport from Falaknuma should be extended to the township via Tukkuguda on Srisailam highway. He wanted satellite townships along the ORR and a metro rail connecting all of them. Other initiatives proposed by him included a dry port and east-west road cum rail corridor on the banks of River Musi from Nagole to Gandipet.

As reported in these columns “Revanth for airport metro via Old City” on Wednesday, the Chief Minister directed the officials to put on hold the award of the contract to build the new metro corridor between Raidurg and airport. Maintaining that a good transport facility is already existing in the form of ORR, he asked the officials to quickly come up with a new alignment useful to the people of central, eastern and old city areas of the state capital.

He suggested alternative routes to the airport extending the MGBS-Falaknuma and forming a new line from LB Nagar via Chandrayangutta. For the second option, he wanted the officials to further study which route could be viable -- Mailardevpally, Jalpally and P7 Road or Barkas-Pahadi Shareef and Srisailam Road.