Enjoy Metro ride, this is no gimmick: Chief minister

Ghaziabad and Noida Metro projects to be expedited, says Yogi

“People of Lucknow can enjoy Metro rail services from Wednesday. Yeh koi shagufa (gimmick) nahin hai,” said chief minister Yogi Adityanath at the flag-off ceremony of Lucknow metro on Tuesday.

His comment was an apparent attack on former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav who had skipped the function, stating that he had already inaugurated Lucknow Metro.

Yadav had flagged off the trial run of Lucknow Metro on December 1, 2016, from Transport Nagar depot.

BJP leaders dubbed the then trial run of metro as a ‘shagufa’ (gimmick), as no commercial run followed after that.

Yogi Adityanath also announced that future Metro projects in PM Narendra Modi’s constituency, Varanasi, Kanpur, Agra, Meerut, Jhansi, Moradabad and Gorakhpur would be spearheaded by the UP Metro Corporation, whose chief advisor would be E Sreedharan.

Adityanath also congratulated team members of the LMRC for completing the first phase of the Lucknow Metro before time.

“The first phase of the Lucknow Metro has been completed before the stipulated period of three years. This is a big achievement,” said the CM.

Now, the Ghaziabad and Noida Metro projects would be expedited, he added.

The chief minister was all praise for Metroman E Sreedharan. “He is an example for the country’s bureaucracy when it comes to execution of work on time,” said Adityanath.

“The LMRC team did a good job and by 2019 the metro project of Lucknow will be completed,” assured the CM.

Commenting on the proposed Metro projects in other cities of UP, the CM stated that Metro rail would improve traffic scenario there.

SUBHANKAR CHAKRABORTY/HT PHOTO Union home minister Rajnath Singh, UP governor Ram Naik and chief minister Yogi Adityanath with other ministers during the flagoff of the Lucknow Metro service from Transport Nagar to Charbagh in Lucknow on Tuesday.