Hyderabad Metro Phase-II expected to carry eight lakh passengers on completion; Cost per km. of Metro Line is ₹318 crore

Hyderabad Airport Metro Limited estimates phase-II metro routes to carry up to eight lakh passengers daily, with financial viability assured.

Hyderabad Airport Metro Limited (HAML) has “conservatively” estimated that once completed, the phase-II metro rail routes can easily carry up to to eight passengers a day and this could go up to 10 lakh too, said Managing Director N.V.S. Reddy on Tuesday (November 26, 2024).

It includes 3.70 lakh passengers for Nagole-Airport corridor, 92,000 for Raidurg-Kokapet, 72,000 for MGBS-Chandrayanagutta, 1.65 lakh for Miyapur-Patancheru and 97,000 for LB Nagar-Hayatnagar. “There will be financial viability from initial period itself as high financial rate of interest and economic rate of return is expected for phase two,” he asserted.

Telangana Government’s proposed joint venture project (50:50) with the Central Government for the project means it will have to invest about ₹1,500 to ₹2,000 crore a year during the construction phase out of the overall financial outlay of ₹7,313 crore as it will have to bear the 30% of the total cost of ₹24,269 crore.

The Centre will bear ₹4,230 crore or 18% of the project cost besides giving a sovereign guarantee which will help take loans from multilateral agencies like Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and others at a low interest rate of 2%, he said.

The loan component is 40% or ₹11,653 crore with the State Government having 40 years repayment period with a moratorium benefit for a few years. Another ₹1,000 crore worth of works are to be taken up under the private public partnership mode which is equal to 4% of the cost.

Due to the available Right of Way (RoW) for most of the proposed corridors and being an elevated line for a majority of the alignment, the cost per kilometre has been worked out to be ₹318 crore, which could have escalated to ₹700 crore -₹1000 crore if it went underground, explained Mr. Reddy.

The phase two works cost is the least expensive in comparison to the ongoing metro rail works in other cities like Bengaluru ₹373 crore-₹569 crore a km, Chennai ₹619 crore – ₹774 crore a km and Mumbai ₹543 crore – ₹1,500 crore. The high cost in these cities is also because of the land acquisition, terrain and underground construction, he said.