Nearly 25 years after the first plan for a mass rapid transport system was mooted for Bangalore and five years after IT czars Wipro?s Azim Premji and Infosys? N R Naryana Murthy raised their voice against the city?s crumbling infrastructure, finally the Karnataka government has embarked on the Rs 6.395-crore Namma Metro project in the Silicon Valley of India.

And Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd managing director V Madhu is racing against time to finish it. For, he hopes to commission the first phase of the Bangalore Metro covering a total of 33 km by December 2011. ?It (Bangalore Metro project) is gathering momentum. It is like an innings of a batsman,? says Madhu in the midst of attending calls and clearing files.

CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE

BANGALORE?s litany of woes began when the city?s infrastructure failed to keep pace with the development. It was in the eighties that information technology companies started setting up shop in what was known as the ?Pensioner?s Paradise? and ?Garden City? and today, there are over 1,600 companies in Bangalore alone contributing over one-third of the country?s software exports of $31.4 billion. With Bangalore emerging as the most preferred destination, its population also showed a phenomenal growth ? from nearly 30 lakh people in 1981 to 56 lakh people in 2001. Today it has close to 70 lakh people and it is expected to be 85 lakh by 2011 when the first metro train leaves the station.

Higher levels of disposable income and the growth of an affluent middle class have been reflected in the number of vehicles plying in the city. There are over 30 lakh vehicles on the road with about 1,000 vehicles being added every day, putting tremendous strain on the already overburdened transport system. If in 1990, the average speed of the vehicles was 20 km per hour, today the traffic crawls on the city streets at 10 km per hour.

?On an average, people spend three hours on the road as 55% of the vehicles are personal vehicles,? says Madhu. He says though they will not be able to cater to the entire population, the Metro will be able to meet at least 15-20% of the transportation needs of Bangalore. ?That will bring in a saving of Rs 1,155 crore per annum,? he adds. (See box on externalities)

THE BIG CHALLENGE

MAKING people switch to public transport is going to be the biggest challenge that Madhu and his team will have to face. ?The Metro will not solve infrastructure problems, because it connects the city partially. It will be okay only if the Metro connects all parts, in fact all 800 sq km. If you do it in bits and pieces, it will stay unused since people will continue to take their cars out,? says Vivek Kulkarni, former Karnataka IT secretary, who is credited with making Bangalore the IT & BT destination of the country. ?World over, the city of New York and London have succeeded because they have excellent network and connect most of the city. Very few use the Los Angeles metro since it does not connect other parts of the city. Bangalore may go the same way,? Kulkarni, who is now the CEO of Bangalore-based knowledge process outsourcing firm Brickwork India, adds.

?Namma Metro cannot be a show-piece. It needs to be an actual lifeline of travel in the city that citizens will adopt willingly and in a mass manner. The Bangalore Metro project is going to ease the short-term issue for sure but the medium-term issue on a horizon of 15-20 years, however, is a big one to address and the Metro will be but a small cog in that solution-scape,? says brand domain specialist Harish Bijoor.

But Madhu says they have worked out the inter-connectivity problems. To begin with, the city bus corridors will not run parallel to the Metro, instead they will act as feeders. ?The mono rail network planned for the city will not overlap with that of the Metro, but will connect at major junctions as feeders. The Bangalore Metro will be integrated with the railways and other modes of transport,? he says. In addition, he says on certain high-density corridors, three wheelers will be regulated and feeder bus services will be provided to all the metro stations. ?We are also setting up satellite bus-cum-Metro terminals in the city outskirts to control the entry of inter-city buses,? he adds. All this he believes will cut down travel time substantially and make the city more clean and less polluted. ?The health bill and pay out for accident victims will come down,? he says.

CRITICISM

HOWEVER, not all are happy with the way things have progressed. ?It is not part of an integrated transport solution for the city and its economics are very questionable. It will only get worse as the project implementation issues begin,? says Janaagraha founder Ramesh Ramanathan. He says with escalating costs, the user may have to pay, putting the Metro out of reach of the poor and the lower middle class. ?As we have waited this long, there is no harm in developing a comprehensive integrated mass transit solution for the city. In India, we rush into large projects without adequate preparation, consumed by a false sense of urgency and then find, halfway pregnant, that we hadn?t considered all the issues,? he says.

THE ECONOMICS

MADHU says the Metro fare is being considered at about 1.5 times the ordinary bus fare, but it will be quicker and safer. ?The travel time from end-to-end on the east-west corridor will be 33 minutes and on the north-south corridor 28 minutes,? he points out. As for the economics, the entire project will be financed by way of equity, subordinate debt and senior term debt. While the Centre will infuse Rs 959.25 crore as equity and Rs 639.50 crore as subordinate debt at 0% interest, the Karnataka government will pump in Rs 959.25 crore as equity and an equivalent amount as subordinate debt. While the Centre and the state governments will pump in Rs 3,517.25 crore, the rest Rs 2,877.75 crore will be through senior term debt from Japan Bank for International Cooperation and commercial banks. As for the profitability of the project, Madhu says by the tenth year of its operations, the Bangalore Metro will have a net profit of Rs 241 crore. ?The economic rate of return is 22.3%,? he adds.

All said and done, everyone is unanimous on one front: The Bangalore Metro project is a long overdue step. But then, as MindTree Technologies chairman and managing director Ashok Soota says: ?More than solving the current infrastructure woes of the city, the project should be planned with a long-term vision, so that 10-20 years from now, we do not have to grapple with the same sit uation.? Only time will tell, whether Namma Metro will be able to address those issues and drive Bangalore ahead.