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Battle lines drawn between DMRC and KRC chiefs<br>It's Metro Rail vs. Sky Bus
By Harish Rao and Joe C. Mathew
The battle between E. Sreedharan, CMD, Delhi Metro Railway Corporation Ltd, and B. Rajaram, Managing Director, Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd, seems to be heading for a grand finale. At stake is more than Rs 50,000 crore.
It all started when Sreedharan said, in July, that the sky bus project was "unviable" and "misleading". Rajaram promptly retaliated by stating that the project was tested and found viable by none other than President Dr A.P.J. Kalam when he was principal advisor to the government a few years ago.
However, Sreedharan, who once headed KRC before taking over the reigns of DMRC, appears to be in no mood to give up. At a press conference in Cochin recently, he reiterated his preference for rail-based mass rapid transport system over sky bus for Indian cities. He felt that the country should opt for a time-tested system, which already existed in the developed world, rather than going in for a system that was yet to prove its merit.
People at KRC aren't taking things lying down either. Says a spokesperson for KRC, "Sky Bus is our country's indigenous breakthrough in transport technology. Each element is well proven but re-engineered for increased safety and economy, which makes the old generation elevated metro an obsolete technology. Sky Bus is the technology of the new millennium and our country should be proud that for the first time we can be the leader and not merely a market for imported technology."
Konkan Railway feels that the elevated and underground metros are old generation technologies and make urban transport a financial disaster. Instead of serving people they become financial millstones taxing everyone else for the comfort of a few.
KRC has made some progress in commercialising sky bus with the Goa government agreeing to go for the technology. But, Sreedharan feels that the inauguration of the world's first Sky Bus Station in Goa does not signify much as it is still to perform in a full-fledged manner. He was against attempting the Goa experiment in Kerala as he felt that Kochi couldn't expect such a traffic movement that called for continuous service every minute.
Battle lines drawn between DMRC and KRC chiefs<br>It's Metro Rail vs. Sky Bus
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