The State cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal to lease out 4.75 hectare of State government land in Balewadi to Tata-Siemens for commercial use for 35 years as per the agreement between the PMRDA and the private firm.
With the Maharashtra government allowing the joint venture of Tata and Siemens company to use 4.75 hectare of its land in Balewadi for commercial purpose, the actual work of the ambitious metro rail route from Hinjewadi to Shivainagar is likely to start anytime soon as over 90 per cent of the land for project has been acquired for the proposed 23.3 km long metro rail route.
In 2018, the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) signed a contract with a joint venture of Tata and Siemens for the project to be developed on a public private partnership model to decongest traffic in the city by improving connectivity within the metropolitan region. However, the private firm had stated that it would begin work only after getting 90 per cent of the land in possession.
The State cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal to lease out 4.75 hectare of State government land in Balewadi to Tata-Siemens for commercial use for 35 years as per the agreement between the PMRDA and the private firm.
“The metro rail project from Hinjewadi to Shivajinagar is being developed by Tata-Siemens. In an agreement signed with PMRDA, it had laid the condition of getting five hectare of land for commercial use. It has now been provided in Balewadi,” said an officer with PMRDA.
Now, most of the land for the project has also been acquired by the government except for a small area. “Almost 95 per cent of the land for the project has been acquired and we are hopeful to see the actual work on the project begin soon,” he said.
Earlier, the PMRDA had declared that the metro train facility between Shivajinagar and Hinjewadi will be operational by March 2023 and the service will ferry nearly 30,000 passengers per hour during peak hours. However, the delay in land acquisition has affected its plan and the metro route is unlikely to be started as per the schedule, the officer said.
The 23.3-km route will cover the distance between Civil Court, Shivajinagar, to Maan near Hinjewadi IT park in less than 40 minutes. The Metro line will have 23 stops on the way. The project is being planned as a public-private partnership (PPP) model and has a budget of Rs 8,100 crore.
It is being executed on the design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) model, with an initial concession period of 35 years by a consortium of TRIL Urban Transport, a subsidiary of Tata Realty and Infrastructure Limited, and Siemens Project Ventures GMBH, a subsidiary of Siemens Financial Services.
In November last year, the Maharashtra government approved the transfer of 7.14 hectares in Shivajinagar from the Dairy Development department to the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA), for the Metro rail project from Hinjewadi to Shivajinagar.
