Metro Rail work rolls on, pre-bid meet on July 10

LUCKNOW: The Lucknow Metro Rail project is gathering steam. While a pre-bid conference to award the tender for civil work is scheduled on July 10 in New Delhi, a two-member team of European Investment Bank (EIB) officials will arrive in the state capital on July 8 to hold discussions for bankrolling the project.

A day before EIB visit on July 7, chief secretary Alok Ranjan would preside over a board meeting of the Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation (LMRC) to clear proposals and tie up loose ends for commencement of work on the priority section.

“The pre-bid conference has been organised by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) but an LMRC official is also being sent to be on the negotiation panel to select the detailed design consultant for the project,” said an LMRC official.

Metro man and principal advisor to LMRC, E Sreedharan, who has been given plenipotentiary powers by the state government to oversee the project, has set out the milestones for rolling out the first service by December 2016. Though the central government has given in-principle approval to the first phase of Lucknow Metro Rail, it is yet to ink a formal agreement with the UP government and provide its share of financial assistance to the project.

“Our chief secretary has written twice to the ministry concerned to provide a suitable date for signing of the memorandum of understanding but we have not received any official intimation as yet from the centre,” said a senior government official.

LMRC officials, however, maintain that they have the requisite funds in hand to start work. “The EIB is the fourth foreign institutional lender after AFD, World Bank and JICA that has shown interest in providing financial aide to us,” said the LMRC official. He said EIB overture to provide loan came almost three months after the Department Of Economic Affairs under Union Finance Ministry had forwarded the detailed project report of Lucknow Metro Rail to it EIB in March this year.

According to LMRC officials, the two EIB officials would fly down to Lucknow from Europe to collect necessary information and documents and make an on-the-spot assessment of the project.

“The DEA had written to us to send formal invitation letters to EIB’s Asia head, Jensen Max and his associate Vicker Piers to enable them to procure the necessary visa for their visit,” said the official. He said the formal invitations had been sent to the embassy concerned by LMRC managing director Rajiv Aggarwal.