Petition filed against Agra Metro Project that PM Modi inaugurated, hearing on Dec 21

  • | Tuesday | 15th December, 2020

Agra: The Agra Metro Rail Project that Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated through videoconferencing earlier this month has run into another trouble. A former member of the UP Legislative Council has filed a petition against the construction of the metro yard.

Agra: The Agra Metro Rail Project that Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated through videoconferencing earlier this month has run into another trouble. A former member of the UP Legislative Council has filed a petition against the construction of the metro yard.

Bachchu Babu, the former UP legislator and a lawyer, moved the court of the Agra civil judge claiming that the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) grounds where the yard is being constructed was illegally occupied and that the title of the land still belongs to the Rangji Maharaj Temple Trust. The petitioner has sought immediate suspension of the construction of work on the Agra Metro Rail Project that is being done at the PAC grounds. The project was inaugurated by PM Modi on December 7. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also attended the event.

Earlier, the Agra Metro Rail Project had come to a halt hours after the drilling started due to an untraceable maze of underground pipelines and cables on the metro route. T metro rail corporation is still contemplating on a way to restart drilling. Bachchu Babu said the claim of the Rangji Maharaj Temple Trust on this land had been found valid by the Additional Collector of Agra on August 8, 1990, however, the PAC did not vacate the grounds. He contended that even though the land did not belong to the PAC, it has handed over the grounds to the metro rail corporation.

According to the available information, the petitioner has made Agra Divisional Commissioner, District Magistrate, PAC Commandant and UP Metro Rail Corporation as respondents. The court has issued notices to the parties and the next hearing has been fixed on December 21. Bharatiya Muslim Vikas Parishad chairman Sami Aghai said, “Agra never needed a metro train but if it was indeed being constructed then at least the title of the land being acquired should have been clear. The project getting stuck at the very beginning is a bad omen for Agra metro rail.” Hindustani Biradari vice-chairman Vishal Sharma said, “What Agra needed were better roads and better sanitation. The metro train could have been beneficial if Agra had been spread for several dozen kilometers. When the longest route of this metro is less than eight km, such a huge expenditure on the project hardly makes sense.”

However, Sharma said the way the Rangji Maharaj Temple Trust has filed a case after the project was inaugurated by PM Modi, it is clear that the motive of this writ petition is to derail the development of the city. He demanded to know why the trust was silent for over two years during which everybody in Uttar Pradesh knew that the Agra Metro Rail Project would be coming up at the PAC grounds. Sharma suggested that if there is indeed some irregularity in the way the land was acquired by the metro rail corporation, the trust officials should settle this issue out of the court.


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