Pune: A draft report of the 21-km long Metro Rail Project between Shivajinagar Court and Loni Kalbhor was recently submitted by Delhi Metro to the Pune Metropolitan Area Development Authority (PMRDA). The route will see an elevated Metro Train service while the expenditure cost for the same is estimated at Rs 7,200 crore. The route comprises of 21 stations so far.
PMRDA (Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority) has already undertaken a Metro Rail Project for Hinjewadi to Shivajinagar route. Meanwhile, there was a demand to extend the route from Shivajinagar to Hadapsar. Thus, the new route Hinjewadi-Shivajinagar-Hadapsar- Fursungi was proposed.
Recently, Deputy CM of Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar who also is the Guardian Minister of Pune also told to extend the route to Loni Kalbhor. MP Amol Kolhe and MLA Chetan Tupe had also demanded the extension of the Shivajinagar-Hadapsar corridor till Loni Kalbhor which Pawar accepted.
PMRDA officials were also instructed to revise the report submitted by Delhi Metro. In a month, a final report from Delhi Metro will be submitted to the PMRDA, once approved it will be sent to the state government, officials from the PMRDA said.
SWARGATE TO KATRAJ ROUTE APPROVED
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) general body also gave its approval for the extension of the Metro rail route from Swargate to Katraj. This route is proposed underground and the PMC will contribute Rs 233.75 crore for land acquisition and reintegration as its share in the project.
Meanwhile, Maha-Metro is developing two routes currently; Swargate to Nigdi and Vanaz to Ramwadi. It has been conducting trial runs on the Swargate to Nigdi route in Pimpri-Chinchwad and is scheduled to begin the trial runs on the second route of Vanaz to Ramwadi on the Karve Road stretch.
Earlier, the MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi) government led by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray in the budget for the financial year 2021-22 allocated a total of Rs 490 crore for the Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation (Maha Metro) of which Rs 302 crore is reserved for Pune.