Commuters find Ahmedabad Metro flagged off by PM of no use

Late announcement of the polls by the Election Commission of India enabled Prime Minister Narendra Modi to flag off two Metro Rail systems in Ahmedabad and Nagpur in March. But in both the cities, the Metro Rail system has drawn criticism from the people, with some speculating that the Nagpur Metro may even affect the chances of union minister Nitin Gadkari in the election.

Nagpur, people say there, is a city of two wheelers and they do not appreciate the shortening of roads, felling of trees, imposition of taxes etc. to put up the expensive system that is of little use with no last mile connectivity.

In Ahmedabad, the Prime Minister is not facing any adverse reaction though, despite the project having cost a whopping ₹10,000 Crore and which was hit by delays and corruption which landed the project head Sanjay Gupta, an IAS officer, and six other officials in police lock-up in 2015.

That the Prime Minister wanted to inaugurate the project before the election is obvious. And officials obliged him by hurriedly preparing a stretch of 6.5 kilometres and the two transit stations for him to dedicate to the people on March 5 last month.

But a month and a half later, there are no commuters.

Instead, the three-coach metro that runs between Vastral Gaam and Apparel Park, both the areas inhabited by the working class, are being used for joy rides by children and visitors to the city from the rest of the state. Barring the two transit points at the start of the ride and the terminus, all the four stations in between are still under construction. No one can therefore board the metro from any of these stations where even the floor of the platforms have not yet been paved.

Even stations at Vastral Gaam and Apparel Park do not have elevators, lifts or entry and exit wicket gates.

For the first week, metro ride was offered for free. “Hundreds of people enjoyed the free joy ride. Today, curious people pay Rs 20 for each of their family members and friends for a two-way ride from Apparel Park to Vastral Gaam,” informed the Metro official managing the ticket booking counter.

“I use my bike to commute every day between home in Vastral and Apparel Park, where I work in a machine tool making workshop,” says Pravin Raval. “No one from my locality uses the metro to go to work,” he points out.

Residents of Rakhiyal and Amraiwadi, inhabited by people of the working class, find two-wheelers or shared auto rickshaw more convenient to commute than the metro.

The first 6.5 kilometres of the 40-km long phase-I of the metro project has been on the drawing boards since 2005, but work began only in March 2015. The first phase of the project costs around Rs 10,773 crore, for which Japan has extended a soft loan of Rs 6,066 crore.

The Ahmedabad project has been delayed so much that metro rail projects of cities like Lucknow and Kochi, which were sanctioned much after the Ahmedabad metro, were commissioned in a record time of four years. The Kochi metro project is the first metro in the country which connects rail, road and water transport facilities.

At present, there are 13 metro rail systems in 18 cities of the country India with 638.91 kilometres of operational metro lines and 496 stations.