Properties belonging to the South Central Railways (SCR), which are of strategic importance to the Hyderabad Metro Rail project, have been acquired recently. The eight properties of various land sizes were handed over to the Metro project at a cost of Rs. 40 crore, said Hyderabad Metro Rail MD, N.V.S. Reddy.

Talking about the legal status of the acquired land in Miyapur, he said: We faced difficulties in taking possession of 104 acres land but we had overcome it. Close to 200 court cases were filed on the land and we won almost all of them, except around 20 more cases. We hope to win the rest of the cases too.

Mr. Reddy was giving the Dr. A. Ramakrishna 2 Endowment Lecture on ‘Hyderabad Metro Rail as an Engineering Innovation and Urban Redesign Opportunity’ organised by The Institution of Engineers on Monday.

Giving an update on the project, he said that about 45 km of viaduct is complete but Metro rail services would not start immediately because only eight km of the metro line is ready and this will not serve the purpose of the immediate transportation needs of the public.

Talking about the green initiatives, Mr. Reddy said that 5,000 trees have been cut for the Metro project and according to the forest department rules we have to plant five sapling for every tree felled. Instead of 25,000 saplings, we planted three lakh saplings till date. About 2,000 trees were transplanted and all are doing well. We will also beatifying the medians like the one in Madhapur, he said.

Hyderabad Metro is the first Indian metro project to implement Communication Based Train Control system and it is also being used in Delhi and Cochin projects. Earlier, Mr. Reddy remembered late builder and engineer, A. Ramakrishna, for his contribution to several development related projects in the country.