Hyderabad: The First Indian Public Metro Metro Project (PPP), Hyderabad Metro, is red.
L & T Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (L & THMRL), which operates the Metro, has been seeking government assistance to redeem it from the financial crisis.
Covid-19-induced restrictions coupled with the lack of last mile connectivity, low passengers and an increase in operating costs have destroyed the increase in metro operators conducted in the early years of operations.
Operators have made Rs 5 Crore loss a day, on average, while the income is only Rs 1 Crore a day.
In the last week of June, the Metro L & T train authority has met with the chairman of Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and asks for help.
CM requested Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) and the minister’s office to submit a report on what can be done according to the concession holder agreement.
The source in the government said L & T submitted their financial details to the government.
According to them, the Metro Rail operator has registered a loss of Rs 400 Crore only in the first quarter (between April and June 2021) and is expected to touch 1,500 crore at end of fiscal.
According to the report, the accumulation of losses from the beginning of the operation had reached around Rs 4,000 Crore.
In 2019-2020, the accumulated loss was RS1,766 Crore, which was stated by L & Thmrl in its annual report.
Officials said the main reason for loss was Covid-19 and subsequent locking where Metro services were suspended for several months.
Even after reopening the service, passengers (available meters of metro) were not encouraging as many companies, especially the company, had asked their employees to work from home.
Another reason, according to the source, is that many people have not prefer metro because of poor miles connectivity.
There are criticisms about Metro rates as well, which is much higher than other public transportation such as RTC buses.
“Before Covid-19, the daily average passenger was 3.4 lakh and even went to the top four lakh one day.
There was no metro service for 169 days.
Even after the metro service continued this year, footsteps were around two lakhs on February 2021.
Then, it fell to half and now has one passenger lakh a day, “explained a senior CMO official.
Official sources in the City Administration Department said CM could hold a meeting with L & Thmrl officials about this issue and exercise on a strategy to save him as Hyderabad Metro was the first Metro Propriciong Protuse (PPP) project in the country.
Then, Maharashtra also runs the Metro train project with PPP mode.
Maharashtra plans to take over Operation Mumbai Metro One Private Limited from the developer, Reliance Infrastructure Pvt Ltd.