Putting to rest the fear of a large-scale land acquisition drive for the construction of the Agra Metro Train, the UP government has made it clear that over 95 percent of the land used in the construction will be government land.
Despite the extensive use of government land, 89 hectares of land belonging to private enterprises, railways, and defense will also be used for the 30 km metro track. The entire acquisition is expected to cost around Rs 420 crore. The UP Metro Rail Corporation will spend Rs 245 crore on the first corridor and Rs 175 crore on the second corridor land.
When the first DPR of the project had been prepared by RITES, assisted by the ADA, it had indicated the need for 130 hectares of land at the cost of Rs 680 crore. However, following some changes in the DPR and the alignment of both corridors, the cost came down by Rs 260 crore, and land requirement also came down to 89 hectares.
When the first DPR of the project had been prepared by RITES, assisted by the ADA, it had indicated the need for 130 hectares of land at the cost of Rs 680 crore. However, following some changes in the DPR and the alignment of both corridors, the cost came down by Rs 260 crore, and land requirement also came down to 89 hectares.
A UP Metro Rail Corporation official told India Today that the first corridor will have 6 stations and a tender worth Rs. 273 crore has already been issued for it. The Fatehabad Road-Basai station is being constructed first and the tender process for Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, and Jama Masjid stations is under process. He said that every train will have 3 coaches and each coach is expected to cost Rs 8 crore.
A total of 84 coaches will be purchased for Agra Metro at the cost of 672 crores. 8 pairs of trains and 46 coaches will run on the Kalindi Vihar-Agra Cantonment stretch, while the Sikandra-Taj Mahal corridor will have 6 pairs of trains and 36 coaches. Bombardier has been given the tender for supplying 201 coaches for Agra and Kanpur Metros. It already supplies coaches for Delhi Metro.
The First corridor coaches will cost about Rs 288 crore while the second corridor coaches will be worth Rs 384 crore. The supply of the coaches is expected to start by December 2022, when the first corridor is set to complete.
Criticizing the enormous expense on metro trains, Hindustani Biradari Vice-Chairman Vishal Sharma said that instead of going through a monumental blunder of building a metro rail network which will be a loss-making proposition for the city, the government should have thought about increasing the number of flyovers in the city, bypassing the major traffic choke points.
Sharma said that Agra city has a very small geographical area and going through so much expense to run just 7 km of metro train between Taj Mahal and Sikandra is just a wastage of taxpayer money. He said that a distance of 7 km was easily covered in 15-20 minutes by road when the traffic was low and the metro train will only cut down that time by a few minutes, which was not justifiable considering the huge cost of building it and the inconvenience suffered by the residents of the city while the metro is being constructed.