Nine more cities to get Metro rail soon

The Centre is considering implementing Metro rail projects in nine cities at a cost of Rs 83,000 crore, according to Union Minister for Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu. ´The Government plans to take up new projects in Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Vishakhapatnam and Vijayawada, while work is on in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai and Nagpur,´ he said at a function to unveil the first coach shell manufactured for Kochi Metro at Alstom Transport India Ltd facility in Sri City, near Chennai. The cost to construct one km of Metro rail is around Rs 250 crore and a total of 223 km will be covered by these Metro projects, he said. Currently, 259 km of Metro rail is operational. Of this, 189 km is in Delhi, 60 km in other cities, including Chennai, Bengaluru and Nagpur.