E Sreedharan to head panel for laying standards for metro rail system

New Delhi, June 26: The government has constituted a committee for standardisation and indigenisation of metro rail system across the country.
The committee, to be headed by ‘Metro Man’ E Sreedharan, is likely to submit its report in three months.
After three months, based on specific task of standardisation, the Chairman could co-opt the relevant expert members for the task for a specified period of time, a statement said.
There are numerous areas, for which indigenous standards need to be formulated. These are layout of metro station, platforms, signage and displays, size of tunnels, fire protection systems, disaster management systems, environment friendly and waste management systems, standards for solar panels at stations and others.
These indigenous standards will ensure that metro rail sub systems for all new metro projects conform to the prescribed standards, thus incentivising manufacturers to plan for long term investments in the country and set up manufacturing units. This will also bring down the cost of the metro rail constructions and operation.
At present, 490 km of metro lines are operational in 10 different cities of the country. More than 600 km of metro rail projects are under construction in various cities and in the coming years, there will be robust growth in this project.
More than 350 km of new construction will start in the next few years as more and more cities are planning for expansion. Besides metro rail network, the Regional Rapid Transport System (RRTS) is also being introduced to de-congest Delhi and NCR.
The first phase of RRTS consists of three corridors, covering a total length of about 380 km. This transit system will connect Delhi with Sonepat, Alwar and Meerut.
The government is providing financial support in the implementation of metro rail projects by way of equity and subordinate debt, as well as sovereign guarantee for multilateral and bilateral loans.
The average budget outlay of government is likely to increase to about Rs 25,000 crore annually, apart from the investments envisaged by the state governments, private partners and ULBs.