Maharashtra allocates Rs. 188 crore for Nagpur Metro Phase I completion.

In some good news, the state government has allocated Rs.188 crore for the on-going phase-1 of Nagpur Metro.

The development was announced by state finance minister Ajit Pawar on Monday while presenting the state budget for financial year 2021-22. The state also allocated nearly Rs.302 crore for Pune metro rail project. Collectively, the state has allocated Rs. 491 crore for both the projects.

Though the sanctioned amount is about Rs. 1.5 crore less than that demanded by Nagpur MahaMetro, the agency is satisfied. “It is very close to the amount we needed. Already over 90% of the work of pahse-1 project is complete. Now with the sanctioned amount, we will finish the remaining work at a fast pace,” officials told TOI.

While central government had paid its full share of the project, the state government has to pay Rs. 435.34 crore in total. It had earlier approved Rs184 crore and assured to make allocation for the same in the financial budget. However, as reported by TOI recently, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) have refused to pay their share, which totals over Rs. 550 crore.

NIT and NMC both have 5% share in the Rs. 8,680 crore project. Their share is Rs. 434 crore each.

NIT has to pay Rs.191 crore to MahaMetro as rest of the amount has been paid in the form of land. NMC too has provided land and now has to pay Rs. 367 crore. Some days ago, the then NIT chairperson Sheetal Ugale had written to the state government asking it waive off its share in Nagpur Metro project. Ugale said NIT had been dissolved and hence had no source of revenue.

NMC officials had earlier told TOI that NMC would not pay its share in cash as it had “given a lot of land to MahaMetro for commercial exploitation”.

However, MahaMetro has set a target of completing the Nagpur Metro project by December 2021 and hence needs money in the next few months. “We are taking follow-ups from both NIT and NMC, and we are hoping to get the funds soon,” an official said.

ET