Civic administration proposes light train project

PUNE, July 21: The civic administration today sent a proposal to the City Improvements Committee seeking permission to float tenders for ...

PUNE, July 21: The civic administration today sent a proposal to the City Improvements Committee seeking permission to float tenders for its ambitious light train project of Rs 1,500 crores on Built, Operate and Transfer BOT basis.

The decision to send the proposal to the City Improvement Committee was taken after RITES, which was assigned to work out pheasibility of the project, submitted a pheasiblility report to the civic administration. In its report, RITES had suggested 14 routes on which light train could be started.

The civic administration proposes to launch the light train service on six routes in three stages. The two routes on which the civic administration proposes to start light train service in the first stage have been mentioned in the pheasibility report. These two routes include the one linking the Agricultural College with Telco and the other linking Agricultural College with Warje. The route between Agricultural College with Telco is 12 km long while the length of the other route is 10 km. The expenditure incurred for completing the first stage of the project is estimated to be Rs 1,457.

The pheasibility report has suggested that the company undertaking the work of constructing the rail routes should be provided with land to build residential and commercial complexes.

The civic administration has identified three plots which will be allotted to the company which will be awarded with the contract to construct the two routes on which light train service is to be launched in the first stage of the project.

Some of the land at these plots will be used to build railway stations while the rest will be used to construct residential and commercial complexes. These plots are located near Kamalnayan Bajaj Garden on Mumbai Pune Road, land owned by the Agricultural College along the Mula Road and at Wagholi.The City Improvements Committee considered the proposal in its meeting on Wednesday and decided to hold a special meeting to discuss it at length.