A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) will be set up by the Bihar government to fast track the Patna Metro rail project.

The SPV will be named ‘Patna Metro Rail Corporation’ and will be formed on the lines of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation for monitoring the construction. The SPV will be set up with a board of directors, headed by a non-executive chairman and project director as MD of metro rail project.

Once the SPV is constituted, the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the Patna Metro rail will be sent to the central government for approval.

Early this month, the Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES) submitted the draft DPR for the metro project, to the Bihar government. The state government gave its in-principal approval to the DPR on 13 November, 2014.

The DPR has reduced the project cost from the earlier estimate of Rs 17,000 crore to Rs 14,000 crore.

Both, central and state governments will contribute 20 per cent of the project cost. The state government will approach international financial agencies like Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), World Bank, or Asian Development Bank for the remaining 60 per cent of the project cost.

The DPR has also narrowed down the entire metro network to two corridors in Phase-I, covering 31 km. The first corridor suggested by the draft DPR is an east-west one, which will run from Mithapur bus stand to Saguna Mor via Bailey Road and Patna Junction, covering a distance of 14.5 km.

The second corridor will be a north-south corridor which will run from Patna Junction to the proposed bus stand at Bairiya, on Patna-Gaya Road, via Ashok Rajpath, Gandhi Maidan, and Rajendra Nagar Terminal, covering 16.5 km.

The state government will now work to declare Patna a metropolitan city as it will help to speed up the metro rail project.

More Project Info:
Metro (Patna) Project