The losses of Hyderabad Metro Rail, built and being run by concessionnaire L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad (L&TMRH), have ballooned to ₹1,766.74 crore during the financial year 2020-21 when the services were also shut down for about six months from March 23 to Sept. 8, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was against ₹382.20 crore loss posted in the previous year.
Revenue from operations and other income was lower at ₹227.95 crore including fare and non-fare revenue as against ₹598.20 crore for the previous year. Fare collection revenue has been ₹83.98 crore and from other segments like commercial space, it was ₹143.97 crore.
Annual financial statement attributed the fall in revenues to ‘disruption in the metro rail operations due to low ridership and real estate operational activities, fall in revenues as a consequence of revenue sharing model of lease rentals in the place of fixed rentals because of fall in footfalls and other additional costs to ensure health and safety of the employees’. The Board was told that by implementing safety and hygiene protocols of face masks, social distancing, workplace sanitation and employee awareness programs at all its offices and sites, it hopes to once again get people moving on the service. Reasoning is that the contactless, safe, punctual and affordable travel will make more people use the public transport system, what with the fuel prices hitting the roof.
Yet, admittedly the progress has been slow. This year, the metro rail service was forced to run on limited timings during the lockdown in May-June when ridership was just a few thousand when compared to the near five lakh riders and ₹40 crore a month revenue, before the pandemic struck.
“People seem to be still wary and preferring private vehicles. We are gradually reaching the one lakh ridership mark, we can see improvement in a couple of months if we do not hit the third wave with this latest ‘unlock’,” said senior officials, pleading anonymity. “First and last mile connectivity modules like feeder shuttle service, rental bike facility etc., can be activated once the ridership numbers rise. But, we can expect some kind of normalcy only when majority of population is vaccinated; otherwise we may have to go through this cycle of lockdowns with spike in cases, looking at the way the general public have been behaving nowadays,” they added.
As at March 31, 2021 the gross fixed and intangible assets including leased assets of L&MRH has been put at ₹17.713.28 crore and the net fixed and intangible assets, including leased assets at ₹ 17,180.07 crore. Capital expenditure has been ₹276.19 crore and loans to the tune of ₹13,213.33 crore.
Top L&T bosses had met Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao recently seeking support for the project. L&MRH had earlier submitted project cost overrun details of ₹3,756 crore to the government and now, it has been directed to come up with specific plans to improve revenues for official approval.
Published - June 30, 2021 11:46 pm IST
