A credit war broke out over the Kanpur Metro project being inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, with the Samajwadi Party saying the foundation stone of the project was laid during its tenure in 2016 in presence of BJP leaders, while the BJP said the project got off from the ground in 2019.
Samajwadi Party put out a picture from October 2016 when then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav laid the foundation stone of the project in presence of then Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu and then Kanpur BJP MP, Murli Manohar Joshi. Incidentally, even in 2016, there was a credit war over the project with Samajwadi Party then saying it was bringing Metro to Kanpur while BJP gave credit to Murli Manohar Joshi.
The BJP now hit back saying Akhilesh Yadav has a habit of laying claim over every project and this one had got off the ground in 2019. “The construction of the project started under the tenure of CM Yogi Adityanath on November 15, 2019, and the 9-km-long first leg of the project was completed in a record tenure. Kanpur Metro is going to be the fastest built metro project in the country,” BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said. BJP said the project took just 25 months to be inaugurated since work started.
Records accessed by News18 show that in January 2018, the Yogi government had reorganised the Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation to form the UP Metro Rail Corporation for executing various metro projects in Uttar Pradesh, including in Kanpur, Agra and Gorakhpur.
An earlier Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) formed in 2016 by Akhilesh Yadav government to execute the Kanpur Metro Project was scrapped. A revised Detailed Project Report of the Kanpur Metro project was made then as per Centre’s new Metro Rail Policy of 2017 and tenders were awarded. The authorised and paid-up capital for the project was also increased.
Rs 100 crore were first released by the Yogi government on September 3, 2019, for starting the Kanpur Metro project. The target is to complete 32.5 km long two corridors in Kanpur by December, 2024. Metro projects are a partnership between the Centre and the state government.
The BJP and the Samajwadi Party have been at logger-heads for credit over various projects being unveiled by the Prime Minister in Uttar Pradesh lately, like the Purvanchal Expressway, Noida International Airport, Kushinagar Airport and the AIIMS in Gorakhpur. The PM has hit back at SP, saying that party only believed in cutting ribbons while his government believed in executing projects on the ground.
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