Hyderabad Metro to be ready in 5 years

The foundation stone for the prestigious Hyderabad Metro Rail Project will be laid in January 2011.

Union Minister for Urban Development S Jaipal Reddy said in Hyderabad on Wednesday that for the Rs 12,312 crore (Rs 123.12 billion) infrastructure project, the central government will give Rs 1,458 crore (Rs 14.58 billion) towards viability gap funding (VGF).

Reddy said that the project will be completed in five years and become operational to solve the traffic problems in Hyderabad city.

India's engineering and construction giant Larsen and Toubro has bagged the mega infrastructure project as it sought the lowest amount of funding from the central government compared to the other two bidders.

The financial bids of the three bidders were opened on Tuesday by the state government authorities and L&T was given the nod as it had sought minimum VGF of Rs 1,458 crore though the bidders had the option of seeking up to 40 per cent of the total project cost as VGF from both the state and the central government.

The other two bidders -- consortium of Transstroy-OJSC of Russia and Reliance Infrastructure-Reliance Infocomm -- had sought VGF of Rs 2,200 crore (Rs 22 billion) and Rs 2,991 crore (Rs 29.91 billion), respectively.

Three other consortia had also cleared the pre-qualification round, but the GVK and GMR-led consortia backed out in the early stages. One other consortium of Lanco-Essar-Soma-Strabag (Austria) did not make a financial bid for the project.

Sources in Hyderabad Metro Rail Ltd said that a concession agreement between the Andhra Pradesh government and L&T will be signed within a month. A formal announcement about this was likely in a couple of days.

L&T has bagged the project on the Build-Operate-Transfer basis. Under the concession agreement, the private sector company will operate the metro rail for 30 to 35 years before transferring it to the state government.

Fresh bids were called in July last year as the earlier concession agreement signed between the Andhra Pradesh government and Maytas of Satyam group fell through after the Satyam scam came to light.