Vijayawada: The Delhi Metro has been insisting upon the AP government to pay around Rs 60 crore due to them as part of the agreement to build Amaravati Metro. Mr Ramakrishna Reddy, managing director of the Amaravati Metro Rail Corporation, stated that they had paid Rs 15 crore so far to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. "The Delhi Metro was selected as consultant on nomination basis. Before I joined AMRC, it was paid Rs 10 crore as advance, and Rs 5 crore after I became MD,” he said. As per the agreement, the AMRC has to pay about Rs 59 crore to its Delhi counterpart, the MD said “Since the Delhi Metro has not done anything in the past 10 months, the question of paying them anything more does not arise,” Mr Ramakrishna Reddy said.
He said he would not allow funds to be spent to pay Delhi Metro for not doing any work. :We will pay the Delhi Metro only the actuals,” he said. Speaking on the appointment of Urban Mass Transit Company Limited as consultant to prepare a detailed project report for the non-motorised transport project (to make space for pedestrians, cycles) and integrated public transport plan for Vija-yawada Metro, he said the company would conduct studies only, and it might take around 6 to 8 months for them to complete it.
Urban Mass Transit Company Limited is formed by the Union urban development ministry, the state government and In-frastructure Leasing and Financial Services Ltd. The Trans Oriented Development work also has been awarded to the UMTCL, according to the Mr Ramakrishna Reddy. He added that they were in consultation with the KFW of Germany for preparing the detailed project report for the non-motorised transport project. He said the role of UMTCL would be confined to studies on NMT and IPT. Keeping all these developments into consideration, a bureaucrat of the state government’s urban development department said the NMT might not take off before January 2019. “It will not be possible for the government to announce IMT, after 2019 January, as it would be an election year,” he said.
