Telangana Chief Minister Anumula Revanth Reddy has leveled sensational allegations against Union Minister G. Kishan Reddy, blaming his “political vengeance” for the ongoing financial roadblocks delaying the Hyderabad Metro Rail Phase 2 expansion. Addressing the media and official forums, the Chief Minister criticized the financial missteps of the previous BRS government and detailed the current economic challenges facing the project. He pointed out that under former Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), lines were not expanded along high-traffic routes where commuting citizens actually needed them, causing construction costs to escalate from crore to crore due to unnecessary delays.
Providing insights into the financial strain on the project, CM Revanth Reddy explained that the concessionaire, L&T, declined to spearhead the Phase 2 expansion after incurring annual operational losses of around crore. To keep the project viable, the state government strategically stepped in to purchase assets worth crore for a settled value of crore. With contemporary metro construction hitting a steep crore per kilometer and L&T saddled with an existing debt of crore, the Congress-led government has been actively exploring low-interest international loan refinancing to alleviate the fiscal burden on the city’s transport infrastructure.
The Chief Minister strongly condemned the central government’s contrasting treatment of successive state administrations, pointing out that central agencies had previously sanctioned lakh crore to KCR’s government without demanding substantial state guarantees. In contrast, the current administration’s effort to secure a highly favorable interest loan of crore from the Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) was intentionally thwarted. Revanth Reddy charged that Kishan Reddy, alongside Union Ministers Manohar Lal Khattar and Ashwini Vaishnaw, blocked the IRFC funds out of fear that a successful metro expansion would weaken the BJP’s political foothold in Telangana, framing the blockade as a backroom political “tribute” (Gurudakshina) to the BRS for their behind-the-scenes cooperation during the Lok Sabha elections.
