City corporators are demanding a share of the advertisement revenue of over Rs 16,375 crore accruing from the Hyderabad Metro Rail project. They have blocked the project, stating that the GHMC will not spend mo-ney from its own pocket to widen the roads for the metro rail project and the metro rail authorities must share 50 per cent of the advertisement revenue with the civic body since they will be leasing out the space on the elevated corridor and stations for advertisements.
Besides, they want the state government, Larsen and Toubro or HMR Limited — any or all of them — to fund the road widening, currently being done by the GHMC for the project. Highly placed sources said a three-page resolution was passed by the Standing Committee, incorporating these demands, with a copy to the government. The Standing Committee took this decision last Wednesday in response to a show cause notice issued by the state government asking why it should not suspend or cancel the Sta-nding Committee’s Novem-ber 24, 2011 resolution.
The Standing Committee, led by the then Mayor Banda Kartika Reddy, had passed a resolution stating that the GHMC would not bear the cost of road widening for the metro rail. GHMC secretary M.S.S. Somaraju said the government has a right to override the resolution. Earlier too, the government had issued a show cause notice to the standing committee when the corporators refused to toe its line. The state government had directed the GHMC to share 50 per cent of the total sum of Rs 25 crore, the estimated cost of construction of a Road Over-Bridge from Pattiga-dda to Sanjeevaiah Park-Necklace Road.
The GHMC standing committee had then too refused to share the cost. “The GHMC’s financial condition is not vibrant,” said Mayor Majid Hussain, pointing out that the road was being widened for metro rail to have a pathway. The Mayor felt that it was for the government to specify GHMC’s share of advertisement revenue raised by metro rail through commercialisation of properties and stations.
Officials said that HMR was already extending Rs 1,000 crore financial assistance towards land acquisition and structural compensation for properties being affected by the road widening and the GHMC was saving Rs 1,000 crore as it would have to ultimately widen these roads as part of the master plan. “The GHMC has only advanced the dates of road widening because metro rail is coming up,” said an HMR official.