Centre yet to receive revised DPR for HMR phase two: Kishan Reddy

Union Minister for Coal and Mines G. Kishan Reddy asserted that the Telangana government is yet to submit the revised Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the proposed second phase of the Hyderabad Metro Rail. This follows the State’s decision to take over Phase One of the 69.2 km project from the concessionaire L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad (L&TMRH).

“The Congress government lacks clarity. Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy keeps talking about Metro Phase Two, but his government has not yet sent the revised project details or the agreement signed with L&T to take over Phase One. I’ve only read about the pact in newspapers,” Mr. Reddy said during an informal interaction with the media at the State BJP office on Monday.

Last month, the State government announced its decision to pay ₹2,100 crore to L&T towards its equity investment and assume the project’s debt of approximately ₹13,000 crore for Phase One, following a meeting between the Chief Minister, senior officials and L&T top brass.

This move is aimed at forming a Joint Venture (JV) with the Centre to access funding from multilateral agencies such as JICA, at an interest rate of 2% for the second phase. The proposed 76.4 km expansion, estimated to cost ₹24,269 crore, will span five corridors across the twin cities.

However, Mr. Reddy claimed that the Centre has not been formally informed about the agreement. He said his inquiries with Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Manohar Lal Khattar revealed that the revised DPR is yet to be submitted.

“The Centre has asked how HMR Phase One and Two will be integrated in terms of trains, revenue and other operational aspects, since Phase One was developed under a public-private partnership (PPP) model, while Phase Two will be jointly owned by the Centre and State governments. L&T wanted to opt out citing losses. We still don’t know how the State government plans to take over the existing Phase One,” he said in response to a query.