Will Mono Rail steal the pie?Add to Clippings

Mono Rail, a complementary feeder system, is threatening to become a cog in the wheel for the Bangalore Metro Rail project.

A team of Met Rail, headed by former cabinet secretary Zafar Saifullah, is guiding the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRC) and has quietly drawn up a plan to build close to 100 km of Mono Rail for Bangalore, sources told TOI.

The plan is to get the Mono Rail project started by January 2007 and complete it in two years, keeping the Metro Rail project pending till then. Or, worse, scrapping it. Phase I of Metro Rail will take five years to complete.

Several spokes have been put in the Metro Rail project. First, the government has applied the brakes on acquisition of 28 acres of private land to get the project chugging.

Though the foundation stone for the Metro Rail project was laid by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on June 10, nothing has moved since then.

The Karnataka government has posted two engineers — Yoganand and S Kini — who worked under public works minister H D Revanna, brother of chief minister H D Kumaraswamy — in the BMRC to put the Mono Rail project on track.

Both had worked in the Karnataka State Highways Improvement Project earlier. The Karnataka government has been informed, sources say, that Mono Rail is not a mass rapid system and that the project would be exorbitant.

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation MD E Sreedharan has repeatedly pointed out that Mono Rail is not suitable for mass transportation. The decision to build a Mono Rail has been taken despite experts sounding the state government and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda that it can only be a feeder system.

At best, it can be used to transport passengers within an airport or run a maximum of 5 km. Sources said a Mono Rail is being planned along the lines of a project executed by Hitachi for Chongqing city in China.

Expression of interest for the Mono Rail was called for by the Bangalore Metropolitan Regional Development Authority, but now BMRC is looking into the project. Five consortiums have applied to be consultant for the project.

After the consultant is selected, the request for proposal and tender document will be prepared.