In some good news, the state government has allocated Rs188 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 Rs302 crore for Pune metro rail project. Collectively, the state has allocated Rs491 crore for both the projects.
Though the sanctioned amount is about Rs1.5 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 phase-1 project is complete. Now with the sanctioned amount, we will finish the remaining work at a fast pace,” officials told .
While central government had paid its full share of the project, the state government has to pay Rs435.34 crore in total. It had earlier approved Rs184 crore and assured to make allocation for the same in the financial budget. However, as reported recently, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) have refused to pay their share, which totals over Rs550 crore.
NIT and NMC both have 5% share in the Rs8,680 crore project. Their share is Rs434 crore each.
NIT has to pay Rs191 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 Rs367 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 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.
