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Reliance Infra, Veolia extends partnership to bid upcoming metro rail projects in India

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Mumbai: Anil Ambani-led Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra) is looking to take its partnership with French company Veolia Transport, part of the Veolia Environment Group, to bid for metro rail projects in various Indian cities. Veolia operates in four continents covering 28 countries and has 37,000 buses, tramways, metros, suburban and long-distance trains and ferry boats.

“Here in Mumbai, it is originally a five year contract after which we will extend it on mutual consent. We are very happy with them (Veolia Transport). In fact we are thinking to have a joint venture with them and go and bid for other metro contracts,” told RInfra’s chief executive officer Lalit Jalan to Media.

Through a separate joint venture, RInfra and Veolia Transport will undertake operations and maintenance of the project for an initial period of five years. As per the finer details of the agreement, the contract ends on 7 June 2019, which is five years from the metro line’s commissioning date (June 8, 2014).

In Mumbai, RInfra and Veolia Transport have a joint venture for Mumbai Metro One Private Limited (MMOPL), wherein they are operating and maintaining 11.4-km long Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar. RInfra holds 69% of the equity share capital of MMOPL, while Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) holds 26% and remaining 5% is held by Veolia Transport-RATP Asia of France.

In the recent past, development authorities from Chennai have called RInfra to participate in the Chennai metro-bidding process. The company is also looking to operate and maintain troubled Mumbai Monorail, the only monorail in India, between Jacob Circle-Wadala-Chembur. Bidding process is under way to appoint an operator for the only monorail line of the country.
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“With the entire monorail route likely to be operational from October onwards and ridership picking up drastically due to the monorail corridor alignment, the route will be sought after by the operators,” said government sources.

Due to financial crunch the company has changed its business strategy and will go for only those metro rail contracts that are being offered on engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) basis. “In order to run such operations, the government recently said that it wants world class operators. We will have EPC and operation and maintenance businesses where we will provide our role and services,” added Jalan.

The cities where metro routes are planned includes Mumbai, Pune, Varanasi, Agra, Patna, Meerut, Guwahati, Visakhapatnam, Surat, Bhopal, Indore and Gwalior.

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Indian Railways to establish Independent Rail Regulator

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New Delhi: In a major policy reform initiative, India’s cabinet approved a proposal on April 5 to establish an independent rail regulator, which will be responsible for setting Indian Railways’ (IR) freight and passenger tariffs and ensuring a level playing field for stakeholders and investors.

The Rail Development Authority (RDA) – which will comprise a chairman and three members – will set efficiency and performance standards for IR on the basis of “global benchmarking parameters”. It will have the powers to engage experts from other fields.

The RDA is expected to revive investor sentiment, as it will ensure greater continuity on the railway when a change of government occurs.

With the setting up of the regulator towards the fourth quarter of 2017, passenger fares on the IR network – which have remained hugely subsidised in recent decades – are also likely to rise.

A focus for the RDA will be addressing the huge disparity in yield between IR’s passenger and freight businesses. According to the 2015 White Paper on Indian Railways, yields from IR passenger services are among the lowest in the world – calculated at $US 0.01 per kilometre, against $US 0.027 cents in China, $US 0.067 in Russia, $US 0.094 in Japan and $US 0.062 in Germany.

Conversely, freight yields are among the highest at 1 US cent per tonne-km, compared with 0.58 cents in China, 0.75 cents in Russia and 0.51 cents in the United States.

With continuing losses in the passenger segment, IR has been diverting profits earned from freight to subsidise passenger services.

Losses in the passenger segment in the last fiscal year were estimated at Rs 320bn ($US 4.9bn).

“The setting up of the regulator means that the culture of populism will vanish and objective decisions in respect of freight and passenger tariffs will be taken,” an official said. “In all probability, passenger fares will henceforth be fixed on calculations of the Consumer Price Index.”

According to the Indian cabinet’s decision on April 5, an initial sum of Rs 500m will be set aside to establish the RDA, which will operate under the 1989 Railway Act.

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Delhi Metro | Now recharge your Delhi Metro Smart Cards directly from Ola Money app

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New Delhi: The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and Ola Money on Wednesday announced their partnership towards promoting a cashless digital economy as their integration will allow DMRC commuters to recharge their metro cards directly from the Ola Money app.

In awe of promoting the digital economy, Ola Money and DMRC will now enable commuters to avail the option to pay from their Ola Money wallet at the DMRC website.

“We hope to make the transition smoother for metro commuters by integrating Ola Money as a payment mechanism for metro rides. Other than offering an eco-friendly and affordable daily commuting option, DMRC is committed towards encouraging people to use online payment alternatives,” said Anuj Daya, Executive Director (Corporate Communications) DMRC.

“We are extremely delighted to be working closely with Delhi Metro to take the mission of a cashless India forward. Millions of people travel by Delhi metro and they recharge their metro cards on a regular basis. This integration will make the process simpler and seamless as they would be able to use their Ola Money balance to recharge their cards with just a few taps on the Ola Money app or by visiting the DMRC website,” said Sr. Director-Marketing Communications at Ola, Anand Subramanian.

Both DMRC and Ola share the common vision of building sustainable and convenient mobility solutions for the citizens of the country.

Furthermore, with flagship government initiatives such as “Digital India” acting as key catalysts and enablers of digital transformation, DMRC’s integration with Ola Money is a step towards building a more convenient and hassle free payment ecosystem for millions of commuters.

(This article has not been edited by Metro Rail News’s editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)

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Delhi Metro | DMRC’s Mukandpur-Shiv Vihar (Pink) Line completion deadline pushed to April 2018

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DMRC extends trial runs of driverless metro

New Delhi: The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has set April, 2018 as the fresh deadline for the completion of its longest upcoming corridor, Mukundpur-Shiv Vihar Pink Line, which has been battling land acquisition woes at certain stretches.

With this, Delhi’s wait for the crucial extension of its signature mass rapid transit, which provides a much needed sheen to its lumbering and inadequate public transport system, just got longer.

However, a major part of the line, from Mukundpur to Lajpat Nagar, will be “completed” by September, a Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) official said, adding that its eventual commissioning may take some more time.

The metro’s Phase III, of which the 59-km-long Pink Line is a part, has already missed its December 2016 deadline.

Since then, the metro has revised the new target date of completion several times.

Around 91 per cent of civil works on the line is complete as of March, says the latest available project status report.

Magenta Line, another crucial project of Phase III, that will connect west Delhi to Noida via IGI Airport’s domestic terminal, is likely to be “opened” in three stages – from May to September, the report adds.

Here, the progress of civil works up to March stands at 91.37 per cent.

A small section of the 38-km-long line (Line 8), running between Noida, Botanical Garden and Kalkaji, may be opened by May, before its launch in entirety in December, an official said.

Pink Line will touch portions of the inner-ring road and also drastically cut travel time between eastern and southern flanks of the national capital.

It will connect northwest Delhi’s Mukundpur to northeast Delhi’s Shiv Vihar cutting across various south Delhi areas including Sarojini Nagar, INA, South Extension and densely populated parts of east Delhi such as Mayur Vihar Phase I, Vinodnagar and Karkardooma.

DMRC chief Mangu Singh had earlier said that both these lines will be launched in a staggered manner, meaning, small sections will be made operational instead of the entire corridors being thrown open in one go.

Under the phase-III expansion project being implemented at a cost of around Rs 40,000 crore, a total of 140 km of network will be added to the current coverage of 213 km.

(Except headline, the article has not been edited by Metro Rail News’s editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)

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Delhi Metro | Botanical Garden-Kalkaji corridor (Magenta line) to be open in June 2017

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DMRC UTO Trains

New Delhi: The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is set to throw open the stretch between Botanical Garden and Kalkaji Mandir for public use by June this year. After the opening of the stretch, Botanical Garden metro station will become the first and only interchange station in the National Capital Region, outside Delhi.

The Botanical Garden station will provide interchange between the currently operational Line 3 (Noida City Centre – Dwarka Sector 21) and the upcoming Janakpuri West – Botanical Garden corridor. This station will also help in connecting Noida with important locations of south Delhi like Nehru Place, Kalkaji and Hauz Khas.
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The Indira Gandhi International airport will also get direct connectivity to the Janakpuri West – Botanical Garden line, once it is fully operational.

“The projected interchange load at Botanical Garden station, as per the Detailed Project Report ,will be around 97,780. At present, nearly 14,000 passengers use the station every day. The station has a total parking area of about 1,420 sq metres, with a capacity to hold about 400 vehicles,” said a spokesperson of DMRC. He further added that with the new interchange station, travelling time between Noida and Gurgaon will come down by anything between 30 and 50 minutes, with interchange facility at Hauz Khas. Presently, a journey from HUDA City Centre in Gurgaon to Botanical Garden in Noida takes about 90 minutes, requiring an interchange at the busy Rajiv Chowk Metro station.

Noida will also get directly connected with the domestic terminals of the Indira Gandhi International Airport for the first time after the completion of the line. The journey from the Botanical Garden station to the domestic terminal will take about 40 minutes.

The new station building at Botanical Garden will be connected with the existing station with the help of a pathway that is 20 meters wide and 100 meters long. There will be platform to platform and concourse to concourse connectivity, a DMRC official said.

“To save time of passengers, we have provided them platform to platform connectivity. Passengers coming from Noida city centre can get down at Botanical garden and walk straight and take a train towards Kalkaji. They won’t have to get down and take any stairs,” the DMRC spokesperson said.

The construction work of the new station building is in its final stage, he added.

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Suzhou Metro China | Suzhou opens fourth metro line for public

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Suzhou Metro opens fourth metro line

Suzhou, China: SUZHOU Metro added a second north-south line to its metro network on April 15 with the start of trial passenger operation on Line 4.

The line runs for 42km from Longdaobang in the north to Tongli in the south, with a 10.8km branch from Hongzhuang to Muli, which will ultimately become part of the future Line 7.

The Yuan 36bn ($US 5.2bn) line adds 37 stations to the network, including interchanges with metro Line 1 and the main line network at Suzhou Railway Station.

Peak services operate at six-and-a-half minute headways on the main line, with trains running every seven-and-a-half minutes on the branch to Muli.

Services are operated by a fleet of 40 six-car type B trains supplied by CRRC Nanjing Puzhen.

The completion of Line 4 takes the total length of the Suzhou metro network to 121km with 97 stations.

For detailed information on metro projects in India and around the world subscribe to Metro Rail News.

Source: Rail Journal

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Centre to tighten norms for appraising metro rail projects in India

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New Delhi: It will soon become tough for states to send proposal for building metro rail in its cities and get central approval.

Wary that many such metro projects, which are hugely capital intensive, may not be financially viable and can end up burning a big hole in the government exchequer, the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) is tightening the norms for appraising proposals sent by states.

Ministry of Urban Development is the nodal agency for sanctioning metro projects.

In the last few years, proposals to build metro rail in Tier I and Tier II cities such as Chandigarh, Patna, Kanpur, Varanasi and Kochi have landed in MoUD’s doorstep, for approval. They are yet to get the central nod.

Take for instance Delhi Metro Rail Project. It has the highest ridership in the country and making operational profits but is yet to achieve break-even. Almost all the other functional metro networks are currently running at loss including the Mumbai Metro Line-1 that suffers an estimated daily loss of Rs 1 crore, government sources said.

Government sources said the rigorous appraisal norms will ensure that metro rail gets constructed only if it is of utmost necessity and all other measures to de-congest a city such as increasing the public transport fleet has been explored.

The new norms being finalized will allow Centre to approve only those projects, which ensures a 14% return on investment. Currently, the Centre clears projects offering an 8 % financial internal rate of return (FIRR).

The ministry will not consider projects where the EIRR (Economic Internal Rate of Return) is less than 14%. “The EIRR, along with ridership will also capture long term economic gains accruing from a project such as job creation, environmental gains by reducing pollution, reducing road accident deaths, etc.,” said a government source.

Though a metro project has a life of 100 years but the current method of appraisal considers just a 30-40 year life span for assessing its net present value. “This is inadequate to capture the full economic and environmental outcomes of projects,” the source added.

MoUD secretary Rajiv Gauba has set a one month deadline for finalizing the new norms.

The ministry will also fix an appropriate ridership for considering metro projects, keeping in view the present and future traffic projections in the context of expansion of cities.

As of now, though the minimum ridership is fixed at 12000 PHPDT (Peak Hour Peak Direction Traffic), many cities do not adhere to it. For instance, Vijaywada that has sent a proposal to build metro has shown the current PHPDT of 6,000. “At this low ridership, it will take the project a long time to become financially viable,” said a finance ministry official.

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Metro Man who changed the face of India’s public transport

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India's Railway Man is inspirational book on E Sreedharan, known as 'Metro Man'

One peculiar aspect of Indian bureaucrats and their projects is that most of them fail to get the work done within the stipulated deadline and budget. The offering at hand brings us face to face with one man who defeated the tangles that beset our bureaucracy and governance, allowing room for excellence and becoming part of railway engineering folklore.

Elattuvalapil Sreedharan, popularly known as the “Metro Man”, is largely credited for changing the face of public transport in India by his leadership in building Konkan Railway and the Delhi Metro, when he served as its managing director between 1995 and 2012.

A celebrity in his own right, there is ample information about this technological genius in the public domain. There are detailed works on his life that seem to cover his professional efforts, methodology, the problems he faced, and the unique solutions he offered while completing key projects on time and within budget, as well as his ensuing success and glory.

What new information about this man — known, revered and respected throughout the country — could be presented in this book? But as the biographer Rajendra B. Aklekar dug deeper, he came to realise that there was much that was unknown about Sreedharan.

“There were many hidden aspects of his life; aspects never discussed or documented in the public domain, though there are official records and notes regarding a few,” Aklekar mentions in the preface while reminding readers that this biography — mainly based on personal interactions with Sreedharan at his residence in Kerala — focuses on little-known stories that have made him what he is today.

Consider the national railway strike in 1974 for instance: The 20 day-strike by 1.7 million workers is perhaps the largest strike to hit Indian Railways till date but at that time, Sreedharan was busy designing a Metro rail network in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and therefore refused to halt his work.

Then, in the build-up to the first Gulf War, there was fuel shortage in several countries around the globe, including India. The only project that managed to stand up against all odds at that point of time was the construction of Konkan Railway, headed by Sreedharan.

“He had factored in all permutations and combinations, insulating the project from any hurdles by setting up petrol pumps with back-up supplies,” Aklekar writes.

One would assume that Sreedharan — a man so dedicated to his cause and service — must have had a tough family life. But surprisingly, the “Metro Man” maintained a cordial balance between his work and family.

In the biography, his daughter Shanthi Menon shares personal insights about her father, including how Sreedharan values family life and is involved in every small decision that is taken, paying attention to even the smallest needs of his grandchildren.

And then there are critics too. A chapter titled “Bouquets and Brickbats”, provides enough space to his critics too. The biographer points out that not even one of his critics was willing to speak on record, but there were enough cases in the public domain for him to put together their points of view. The fundamental argument of his critics revolves around the fact that Sreedharan was given an unduly free hand, violated all established norms and, despite all of this, has been glorified.
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More than anything else, this biography holds significance particularly because Sreedharan himself sat patiently with the author to clear all his doubts and almost proof-read the draft of this book, giving it the status of an authorised biography.

Finally this book is not a guide to the process that marked the construction of Konkan Railway or Delhi Metro. While these aspects are touched upon in the offering at hand, it is primarily the amazing story of one man – his perseverance, beliefs and public and private battles.

Highly anecdotal and sufficiently endnoted, “India’s Railway Man” is an inspirational book that opens up a life well-lived, against all odds and at constant service to the cause Sreedharan was involved in.

Title: India’s Railway Man

Author: Rajendra B. Aklekar

Publisher: Rupa

Price: Rs 295

Pages: 253

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Bombardier, Alstom turn to India as urban rail export centre

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The French and Canadian multinationals set up manufacturing and engineering operations between 2008 and 2010 to tap into India’s rapidly growing urban transportation market and will now export to Australia, the Middle East and Asia from these facilities, company officials said. Price water house Coopers estimates total investments in subway projects will reach $230 billion in Asia over the next 15 years.

Alstom and Bombardier want to exploit India’s large pool of engineers and cheap skilled labour that have helped turn the nation into a key centre for auto companies including Ford Motor Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. New export avenues such as metro rail systems are critical to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promised economic rejuvenation. Shipments from Asia’s third-largest economy must grow about 15 per cent a year to ensure the pace of expansion needed to create sufficient jobs, according to Modi’s top economic adviser Arvind Subramanian.

Sydney is going to be Alstom India’s first project in Australia and it will supply railway coaches from the South Asian nation, said Bharat Salhotra, the company’s managing director for the region. “We will continue to look at India, not just for addressing the Indian market but for addressing markets beyond. Exports will continue to be on the radar.
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”

Alstom will fill the Sydney metro orders from its manufacturing units in south India and is looking at the Middle East and Southeast Asia, he said.

India is a low-cost set up

Bombardier has invested about 33 million euros in its Indian manufacturing facility and has orders to export 450 metro rail coaches to Australia and components to Brazil, Australia and Saudi Arabia, Harsh Dhingra, chief country representative of Bombardier India said in a phone interview. The Montreal-based company has manufacturing capacities in Gujarat state in western India and a transportation engineering services center in Gurgaon, near New Delhi.

“We will look at opportunities to export from India to other countries in the region,” he said. “India is a low-cost set up. That is why our exports are going out of India.”

Bombardier’s India unit got its first export order in 2012 for supply of components for trains in Adelaide and has since supplied components and railway coaches for projects in Victoria, and Queensland in Australia, Sao Paulo in Brazil, and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. It is also providing engineering services for its parent’s projects in Germany, Switzerland, China and U.K.

India has already emerged as a base from where the likes of Hyundai, Ford, Renault SA and Suzuki Motor Corp. export cars to Africa, South America and Europe. The South Asian nation shipped 3.5 million vehicles in the year ended March 31, just below a record in the previous year, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.

While the government has tried to spur the manufacturing sector via its “Make in India” push, the nation still ranks 130th in the World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking, slowing the pace of investment. It has fared better on the services side: The information technology industry is the nation’s largest private-sector employer, providing a livelihood to nearly 4 million.

10 Indian cities have metro projects

The domestic and regional opportunity for transportation companies only looks to be growing.

At least 10 Indian cities are working on metro railway projects and the government initiated a plan in 2012 to study the feasibility of such networks in all cities with a population of more than 2 million. Most cities with projects require companies that bid for supply contracts to manufacture in India, which led to the setting up of facilities in the country.

More than 500 billion rupees ($7.7 billion) worth of metro projects are underway in India and this pile will probably grow, according to Manish Agarwal, leader of infrastructure at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“All of this implies sufficient scale for parts of manufacturing to be located in India,” he wrote in an emailed response to questions. “The manufacturing base can then also serve the growing market in other parts of Asia (Dhaka, Colombo, etc) as also Africa (Mauritius, among others).”

Source: Montreal Gazzette

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Delhi Metro | Richa Industries bags DMRC order worth 35 crore to build metro stations

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New Delhi: Richa Industries Limited, a leading Construction & Engineering company, has secured an order of Rs.35 crores from Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for constructing the Six Elevated Metro stations on Mukundpur-Shiv Vihar Corridor and Depot cum Workshop of Jahangirpuri-Badli Corridor Phase III of Delhi MRTS.

Richa Industries received this back to back projects from DMRC. The First Project involves the Construction of six elevated metro stations and Second project involves Construction of Workshop, Inspection Shed, Stabling Shed, Pit Wheel Lathe Shed and Parking Shed. The complete scope of work entails Engineering Design, Fabrication, Shipment and Erection of the Pre Engineered Buildings.

“We are glad to get this back to back project of DMRC and this will be our fifth achievement after associating with Metro Rail Sector. Our focus will remain to take up more challenging projects in future for Infrastructure development and enhancing Public services.”, Dr. Sandeep Gupta, Managing Director,Richa Industries Limited said.

Source: Press Release

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