Jayaprakash Narayana criticizes Hyderabad Metro extension plans, experts defend project’s benefits

Civil servant turned politician Jayaprakash Narayan is now targeting the State government’s plans for extending the Metro Rail alongside the Outer Ring Road.

Hyderabad: Civil servant turned politician Jayaprakash Narayana is at it again.

The man, a staunch opponent of the idea of a separate Telangana itself, and who has consistently been talking against every major project taken up in Telangana, is now targeting the State government’s plans for extending the Metro Rail alongside the Outer Ring Road.

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His statement that the ORR Metro was not financially viable, according to transport experts, betrays a lack of understanding of the broader socio-economic benefits that these projects bring.

The Lok Satta founder’s suggestion to focus on plying RTC buses as an alternative raises questions about his understanding of the complexities of urban transportation. The ORR is aimed to provide quick access to important nodes in the city and connect various urban nodes outside the city by connecting the National Highways, and State Highways network and other important city roads. Operating buses would defeat the very purpose of the ORR, they said, adding that the ORR already has a provision for the Metro Rail.

Moreover, he was contradicting his own statements. While he praised the previous governments for their foresight in developing the Hyderabad Metro Rail and the ORR, he alleged that both the projects are yet to recover the money invested on them. He criticized the Telangana government for investing more funds on these projects, but emphasized the need to improve public transport.

His statement that this would become “another Kaleshwaram” too made no sense, since the Kaleshwaram project was now turning into a godsend for farmers across the State, with the project already irrigating 2.5 lakh acres of new ayacut and stabilized about 16 lakh acres apart from playing a crucial role in recharging the groundwater reserves of the State.

As for the Metro, cities worldwide were adopting comprehensive public transport systems not merely to generate profits but to foster sustainable development, reduce congestion, and combat environmental degradation. The argument that the Metro Rail should be replaced with other public transport systems like Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) along the ORR, appears to have been made in haste. Many BRTS projects including the one taken up in Visakhapatnam in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh have proven to be failures. In many cases, the governments were forced to open up these roads for regular traffic.

Perhaps, Jayaprakash Narayan should first understand why Hyderabad required the Metro. Seventy per cent of the country’s wealth was generated in six or seven cities, with Hyderabad playing that role for Telangana. Take the example of the concept of the National Capital Region and the NCR Transport Corporation, which was spending Rs.1 lakh crore to extend the Delhi Metro via the RRTS to five surrounding States. Similarly, Hyderabad’s development into a global city would have to include its surrounding districts.

The Metro alongside the ORR should not be therefore seen as a transport project, but as a city development project as envisioned by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao. It was not a high-cost project but while a city like Mumbai was spending in the vicinity of Rs. 1000 crore per kilometer to expand the existing services, Bengaluru and Chennai were spending roughly Rs 60,000 crore on metro expansion. Hyderabad would be spending about Rs. 200 crore per km.

Experts also argue that the conventional profit measuring methods should not be used for public transport projects, and the Social Cost Benefit analysis, as done by the World Bank, should be done. The ORR Metro would have every one of its stations having five to 10 acres developed as parking lots, with the region around each station to be developed as townships as well.

With the parking lots, people heading to the city, for instance from the Bengaluru side, could park at the Shamshabad Metro station, and from there, reach any spot inside the city in 30 minutes. This was the same all around the 159 km of the ORR, with the Shamirpet station to help those from the Karimnagar side, or with the Medchal station for those from the Nizamabad side and so on.

With major industrial projects like the Pharma City too coming up, people working there and those working in other sectors nearer to the city would eye the Metro townships, which could together house one crore of the population, they said.

Jayaprakash Narayan had obviously not thought beyond the immediate. Telangana was thinking much ahead, and contrary to what Statehood naysayers including him thought, had achieved unimaginable growth. It had in just nine years registered the highest per capita income in the country and the highest growth of per capita power consumption while the GSDP soared from Rs.5 lakh crore in 2014 to Rs.13.27 lakh crore now. All these were while other States were lagging behind, a point that Jayaprakash Narayan forgot to mention in his videos.