Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday inaugurated the Hyderabad Metro, the world’s largest metro rail system under the public-private-partnership costing `14,800 crores.
The PM took a ride along with Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao in the metro’s maiden run.
The Metro has three corridors operating in the most dense traffic routes. The three routes have been combined over a distance of 72 kilometres.
Modi inaugurated the first corridor between Miyapur and Nagole, which covers a distance of 30 kms. This is India’s largest inaugural run for any Metro yet.
At Miyapur, Modi unveiled the Metro pylon, which are three steel arches. One arm of each arch is suspended in the air, suggesting the future expansion plans for the rest of the city.
The metro rail’s commercial operations would start from Wednesday.
Besides the chief minister of Telangana, Modi was accompanied by Governor of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana ESL Narasimhan, Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri, Telangana’s IT Minister KT Rama Rao and state BJP chief K Laxman in the much-awaited train’s inaugural run.
The trains would run from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. initially and the timings would be rescheduled to 5.30 a.m. to 11 p.m., depending on the traffic and demand, Telangana’s Information Technology Minister KT Rama Rao said last week.
He claimed that the Hyderabad metro rail is the most innovative and largest such project in the world in public private partnership (PPP).
The concessionaire, L&T Metro Rail (Hyderabad) Ltd, has fixed a minimum fare of Rs 10 for a distance of up to two km and the maximum fare is Rs 60 for a distance of more than 26 kms.
Each train would initially have three coaches and 330 people can travel in each coach. The number of coaches can be increased to six depending on the traffic, Rao said.