New Delhi: A bill to give legal cover for
construction, operation and maintenance of the metro rail
system in the National Capital Region and other metro cities
was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
The Metro Railways (Amendment) Bill 2009, which was
introduced by Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy, was
necessary as currently there were no statutory provisions to
provide legal backing to the development, construction,
operation and maintenance of metro rail system outside Delhi.
Work was already on to extend the Delhi metro network
to areas like NOIDA in Uttar Pradesh and Gurgaon in Haryana.
Metro rail network was also being constructed in
Bangalore and Chennai, while implementation of the system was
at different stages of consideration for cities like Mumbai,
Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Kochi.
"Therefore, it has become necessary to make suitable
amendments in the Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act
1978 and the Delhi Metro Railway (Operation and Maintenance)
Act 2002 so as to make the provisions of both these Acts
applicable to the metro railways in the NCR, metropolitan
cities and other areas for development, construction,
operation and maintenance of metro railways," the Statement of
Objects and Reasons of the bill said.
These bills are not being made applicable to metro
operations in Kolkata as it was being regulated through the
Calcutta Metro Railway (Operation and Maintenance) Temporary
Provisions Act 1985, it said.
Bureau Report
