Vijayawada:Municipal Administration and Urban Development minister Ponguru Narayana assured on Friday that the Metro Rail projects in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam will be completed in the next three years.He made the statement after two memoranda of understanding (MoUs) had been signed in the presence of the minister at the AP Capital Region Development Authority office in Vijayawada between AP Metro Rail Corporation managing director N.P. Ramakrishna Reddy and two consultancies, namely, Typsa and Shistra.Narayana said Typsa will be involved with Vijayawada Metro designs, technology and supervision of works. Shistra will do so for the Visakhapatnam Metro. He underlined that the Metro Rail projects are being taken up in the two cities as per the 2014 AP Reorganisation Act.The minister said tenders have already been called on Friday for implementation of the Metro Rail project in Visakhapatnam. Tenders for the Vijayawada Metro will be called in a day or two.He said the state government will provide 20 per cent as its share of the metro rail projects, while the centre will provide another 20 per cent as its share. The centre has granted permission for mobilising the rest of the amount as a soft loan from international organisations at a low interest rate with a tenure of 30 years.Narayana pointed out that the metro rail is solving traffic problems witnessed the world over, including in India in the cities of Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Nagpur and other places.He said the Visakhapatnam Metro Rail construction will be under the auspices of the Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Development Corporation in two phases. In the first phase, a total of 46 km of metro line will be constructed with 42 stations. Overall, Vizag metro will be constructed over three corridors at a total cost of ₹11,490 crore.The minister said the first phase of Vijayawada Metro will be constructed under the auspices of the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) at an estimated cost of ₹10,118 crore. It will be 32.40-km long and have two corridors.
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