In a relief for commuters, Telangana Municipal administration minister KT Rama Rao said on Wednesday that the Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) would be launched in the last week of November, and the state had invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to inaugurate operations from Nagole to Secunderabad.
KTR, as the Minister is commonly known as, was interacting with media persons at the Secretariat on Wednesday.
"This is the reason for closing Oliphanta bridge at Secunderabad for traffic now. There is a gap to connect Metro Rail to Secunderabad station at Oliphanta bridge which we want to complete in August. The balance works and railway safety certification formalities will be completed by October so that it will be ready for launch in November,” KTR was quoted as saying.
Reports suggest that PM Modi would already be in Hyderabad, to inaugurate the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in November, as well as the Indian Science Congress and the World IT Congress.
On Wednesday, KTR added that the work on the entire stretch would be completed by the end of 2018.
In June this year, the Telangana state government extended the service of the Hyderabad Metro Rail Managing Director, NVS Reddy by one year.
However, even as the extension orders came, the state had remained largely mum about when the first phase of the HMR will be thrown open to the public.
The entire project should have been completed and operational by July 2017, as per the concession agreement signed with the then united Andhra Pradesh government in 2010.
However, the HMRL has said that the main reason for the delay was due to land acquisition issues, following which the deadline was revised.
Additionally, the Telangana government itself had demanded the realignment of the metro on two of the three corridors, to save religious structures, in 2014.
Despite facing hurdles, eight kilometres between Nagole and Mettuguda and 12 kilometres between Miyapur and SR Nagar, have been ready for months, but are not being thrown open to the public, which has irked citizens.
As of now, the deadline to make the project fully operational is December 2018.