Vijayawada metro rail project to cost Rs. 6,770 crore.

Announcing these policy decisions taken in a meeting he had with Union Minister for Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu and DMRC former MD and the government�s advisor on metro rail projects E. Sreedharan at his camp office on Saturday, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said the Vijayawada project, comprising the Pandit Nehru Bus Station-Penamalur and PNBS-Nidamanur corridors, has been estimated to cost nearly Rs. 6,770 crore. The Financial and Economic Internal Rates of Return (FIRR and EIRR) were 3.4 per cent and 14.42 per cent, respectively, which are way below the standard norms. However, since Vijayawada and Guntur constituted the capital region of AP, the norms related to the Vijayawada metro have been relaxed. As for the Visakhapatnam, the cost has been pegged at about Rs. 10,865 crore. It comprises three corridors: NAD Junction to Kommadi, Gurudwara Junction to Old Post Office and Thatichetlapalem to East Point Colony, spanning a distance of 34.91 km in the first phase. Together with the NAD Junction-Gajuwaka corridor, which was originally proposed in the second phase but will now be taken up in the first, the total distance worked out to 42.5 km, and the cost to Rs. 12,725 crore. On Vijayawada-Guntur connectivity, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu said that since the per-kilometre cost of metro rail was hefty (approximately Rs. 228 crore) and the desired volume of traffic was not there, it was resolved to introduce a high-speed train between the two cities. The new capital city of Amaravati was included in it and DMRC was asked to prepare the detailed project report for it. Mr. Venkaiah Naidu said the Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam metro rail projects were being taken up along with those sanctioned for Jaipur, Cochin, Bangalore, Mumbai, Lucknow, Nagpur Kolkata and Pune which fulfilled most of the criteria, in fulfilment of promises that were made at the time of the bifurcation of AP.