Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Public Sector PR forum event at Chennai

Public Sector Public Relations Forum, Tamilnadu organised a meeting on 20th October 2009 at Chennai. Dr T V Somanathan IAS (Secretary to Government of Tamilnadu and Managing Director of Chennai Metro Rail Limited) made a wonderful presentation on the proposed Chennai Metro Rail project.
Dr Somanathan, holds a Ph.D in Economics. He is a qualified Chartered Accoutant, Cost Accountant and a Company Secretary. He is a student of Harvard Business School. 1987 batch IAS officer, Dr Somanathan stood second at all india level in the IAS and also won the Gold Medal as the best probationer of his batch.
Dr Somanathan explained the details of Chennai Metro Rail project. The cost of project is estimated at Rs.14,600 crores, besides the cost of acquisition of lands which is etimated at around Rs.1,900 croroes. 45 KM metro line, when completed in 2014 or 2015 will be the fourth largest metro rail project in the world. This project will be completed in two phases.
Presently, Chennai has around 28 lakhs of vehicle population (1.4 laksh in 1984) and is growing at 14% annually. Chennai city is one of the oldest cities of the country with narrow roads. Due to the economic growth, the traffic is increassing in large number. Presently, the electric suburb trains transport around 8 lakhs of passengers every day, while MRTS transport nearly 90,000 passengers. The city buses transport around 48 lakhs of passengers. When Metro Rail project is completed, it may likely to transport around 8 lakhs of passengers every day.
Dr Somanathan explained various challenges that this project may face, like land acquisition, traffic management, shifting of existing utility services and also co-ordination with other projects, etc. He was also explaining as to how they propose to meet the challenges to minimise the inconvenience to the general public and to complete the projects in time.
Dr Somanathan said that when the Metro Rail projects gets completed, it would help the chennai citizens greatly. However, he appealed to the people to bear with the inconvenience caused to them during the project works. For nearly one to two years, the Chennai citizens may suffer inconvenience in the traffic, as if 35 fly-overs are being constructed simultaneously. However, they are working out so meticulously, to minimise the inconvenience to the people.
Let us all pray Almighty for save and successful implementation of the Metro Rail project at Chennai. On behalf of the citizens, we should also extend maximum cooperation and understanding with the project officials for smooth and safe implementation.

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