Thiruvananthapuram: K-Rail Limited will have to do a lot of explaining regarding the project cost given in the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the proposed SilverLine project in the event of the Union Railway Minister supporting the concerns raised by the NITI Aayog over the cost of the project.
K-Rail's earlier claim was that it gave a satisfactory reply to all the queries linked to the DPR except on the question of using Railway land.
K-Rail estimated Rs 63,941 crore as the project cost. But it will have to give more clarity on this aspect as the Railway Minister has endorsed the view of the NITI Aayog that the cost would go well beyond Rs.1 lakh crore.
When the DPR was submitted for clearance in November 2020, the NITI Aayog had raised doubt whether the project would cost Rs.1.25 lakh crore. Then, K-Rail Limited entrusted the Rail India Technical and Economic Services (RITES) with conducting an Estimate Audit. The RITES is understood to have taken a view that the SilverLine project would not incur the same cost as that of other high-speed rail projects.
The assessment is that the K-Rail project would cost only Rs 120 crore for one kilometer. But remember that the estimate for one kilometer is Rs 256 crore for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail corridor and Rs 360 crore for the Delhi-Meerut rail corridor.
The doubts raised by the Railway Ministry, which has been studying the DPR for the last one and a half years, over the project cost is sure to create headaches for the state government and K-Rail Limited.
