: A 10-km stretch of Hyderabad Metro Rail between Ameerpet and Hi-Tec City was inaugurated Wednesday, covering 56 km of the 72 km long elevated Hyderabad Metro Rail project, becoming India's second largest network.

With the 56 km length operational, it has now become India's second largest Metro Rail network, next only to Delhi, Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (HRML) officials said.

Governor of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana E S L Narasimhan flagged off the metro rail services to Hi-Tec City, the IT hub of Hyderabad,at Ameerpet Metro station.

The 10-km Ameerpet-Hi-Tec City stretch of Corridor-III with nine stations would establish the crucial Metro Rail connectivity to the highly congested IT/ITES service areas of Hi-Tec City, Madhapur, Gachibowli, Jubilee Hills, they said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the 30 km stretch (between Miyapur and Nagole) of the project in November 2017.

Another 16-km stretch of Hyderabad Metro Rail between Ameerpet and L B Nagar was launched in September 2018.

Currently around 1.8 lakh passengers travel by Metro services on these operational routes daily.

The Governor later travelled from in the Metro train from Ameerpet.

Telangana Chief Secretary S K Joshi, Director General of Police M Mahendar Reddy, Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar were among the dignitaries who were present at the Ameerpet station.

The Ameerpet-Hi-Tec Citystretch, which forms part of Corridor-III (Nagole-Hitec City-27 km), is one of the most congested traffic corridors of Hyderabad, the officials said, adding this stretch connects with already commissioned stretch of Nagole-Ameerpet (17 km).

The total Corridor-III of 27 km has now been made available for the public to give good integrated connectivity to Hitec City from different parts of Hyderabad.

Among the nine stations (Ameerpet-Hi-Tec City stretch), Taruni-Madhura Nagar station is being developed as a women managed station and in due course would have shops mostly catering to their needs and that of children.

HMRL Managing Director N V S Reddy said the Jubilee Hills checkpost station was a single level one unlike other stations which are mainly on two levels.

The concourse level was avoided to reduce the already high level of the station due to gradient related problems,he said.

The officials further said that Corridor-II from JBS to MGBS (10 km) will be completed by December this year.

At an average speed of 32 kmph initially (max speed 80), the Metro train covers Corridor-I and Corridor-III (Miyapur - LB Nagar and Nagole - Hitec City) in 50 minutes as against two hours by road.

Initially trains will run with a frequency of about 12 minutes, which will be increased to three minutes gradually, the officials said.

After completion and stabilisation, the system is expected to carry 15 lakh passengers per day.

The concessionaire L&T Metro Rail (Hyderabad) Limited is building the Hyderabad Metro Rail project across three corridors.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)