HYDERABAD: Twenty months after threatening to pull out of India's largest metro rail project coming up in Hyderabad , citing unfavourable business environment , Larsen and Toubro (L&T) on Wednesday publicly admitted concerns over the project's viability, insisting on deep-rooted negotiations among stakeholders.Announcing the appointment of Shivanand Nimbargi as L&T Metro Rail's new MD & CEO in place of VB Gadgil retiring this month, the L&T's deputy MD and President SN Subrahmanyan said the concessionaire was in talks with the government and lenders. Gadgil said Hyderabad metro rail was the only project in his entire career that he could not complete. As against estimated deadline of July 2017, the project may now take off only by around December 2018, a delay of around one-anda-half-years.The 72-km metro rail project, being built at a cost of Rs 16,375 crore criss-crossing Hyderabad in three corridors, had suffered delays both before and after formation of Telangana for want of right of way and alignment changes. "In a project, there is always a time, beyond which there is no point of return. Up to a point, you can comprise the project and still try to complete. Because of various reasons, the project is getting delayed beyond that," said Gadgil.Admitting concerns over viability of the project, Subrahmanyan said the delays in execution also resulted in cost overruns and they are looking into see how to bridge the gap and take the project forward."So we have to enter into a dialogue with the government to see how to take this forward. The banks will look at debt to see whether the asset has the necessary asset-turnover ratio and debt-turnover ratio to repay their debt back."Further, the L&T Metro Rail chairman said: "Looking at the viability , looking at how the delays will work and looking at various other aspects going forward, we need to have a very deep-rooted negotiations with various stakeholders involved to arrive at a comprehensive solution. This is a very complex matter. Let's see how it evolves."Gadgil said the concessionaire has no information from the state government on the reported changes in alignment in the old city nor any information on second phase of the metro rail project that the Telangana government has been talking about.