PTI
Hyderabad, Nov 23: Hyderabad Metro Rail will offer smart cards worth Rs 200 with a top-up option as well as tokens to commuters using the service, a senior L&T Metro Rail official said Thursday.
“We will be issuing smart cards worth Rs 200 each for commuters. They can top up the card. For a single journey, we will issue tokens which would allow them to board the train,” the official said. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to inaugurate the 30-km-long first phase of the HMR project.
Modi will be coming to Hyderabad to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) from November 28 to 30. Initially, the concessionaire L&T Metro Rail Limited will be plying 18 trains consisting of three coaches for each train.
HMR managing director NVS Reddy had earlier said that large scale public space creation and high quality street level facilities were being developed at Miyapur in particular and at all the 24 Metro stations in the inaugural 30-km stretch of the first phase of the the 72-km elevated HMR project.
As much as 90 per cent of the space at two malls located at Punjagutta and Hitec City has been booked and fit out working is currently going on in those malls, the L&T official said.
The state government sanctioned Rs 3,000 crore to the HMR project of which Rs 2,240 crore has been spent so far. The Centre which is providing a Viability Gap Funding (VGF) of Rs 1,458 crore has so far released an amount of Rs 958 crore, Telangana Minister for IT and Industries KT Rama Rao had said in the State Assembly.
