Railway Minister reiterated the demand of railways for payment of ‘traffic block charges’ by the State government in implementation of prestigious Hyderabad Metro Rail project.

Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday took up with Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu the demand of railways for payment of ‘traffic block charges’ by the State government in the implementation of prestigious Hyderabad Metro Rail project.

Mr. Rao brought to the notice of the Railway Minister, who called on him at Secretariat, that the South Central Railway (SCR) has been demanding Rs. 10 crore per railway crossing where metro lines crossed the tracks of SCR at eight locations in Hyderabad. The amount was more than the cost of road over bridge itself at each location.

The demand of SCR was against the policy of the railway board which had not prescribed any traffic block charges to be collected from Metro Rail administrations. The board had only suggested collection of charges for crossing railway lines, supervision charges and centage charges. The government of Telangana had already paid Rs. 25 crore towards these charges to SCR over 18 months ago.

The other metro rail projects in the country had also informed that no traffic block charges were levied by Southern Railway for Chennai metro crossings and by South Western Railway for Bangalore metro crossings. But, only nominal charges were levied for Mumbai metro by Western Railway, Mr. Rao said.

He also said the work on Bharatnagar metro rail crossing was held up for several months due to the three year standoff between the government and SCR.