UP mulls metro, mono rail in big cities

Lucknow, March 24 (IANS) In a major bid to haul up the state's infrastructure, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav Saturday ordered his officials to prepare feasibility reports for running metro, mono rail and Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) in Kanpur, Lucknow, Agra and Varanasi.

At a high level meeting, the chief minister also asked the officials concerned to take forward the second phase of Metro rail in Ghaziabad, neighbouring New Delhi.

Asking his officials to take keen interest in infrastructure-related projects and to ensure that the traffic problems in major cities of the state was taken care off, Akhilesh Yadav said public-private partnership (PPP) should be encouraged in the Northern Peripheral Bypass Project in Ghaziabad.

Assessing the housing and urban development ministry's work, he also directed officials to speed up the work currently underway on the embankment of the river Gomti in Lucknow and opening up of an Information Technology park in the state capital.

He also asked officials to explore the possibilities of building a flyover between Avadh hospital square and the Amausi Airport so as to ease off traffic woes on the busy Kanpur-Lucknow National highway.