The Telangana government is ready to take up Hyderabad Metro Rail Phase- II work without Centre’s assistance, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy said Monday.

Reddy said that the state would take up the work on 100% equity without the Centre’s share, and demanded that the Union government issue a ‘No Objection Certificate (NOC)’ to the state for taking up the Metro Rail expansion work.

Addressing a press conference, the chief minister said that he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Ministers Manohar Lal Khattar and Ashwini Vaishnaw several times, and urged them to sanction the metro rail expansion project that was already delayed for years.

Reddy said that the Centre had earlier agreed to sanction the Metro Rail Phase II project with a 50 per cent equity share by the Union Government after the contract agency L and T company expressed the inability to maintain the metro line. The company created Rs 30,000 crore worth assets which incurred an annual loss of Rs 400 crore. The CM said after consulting the centre, the State Government took over Metro Rail assets for just Rs 15,000 crore.

To clear the L&T Metro ‘s loan amount of Rs 13,600 crore from banks at an interest rate of 8.25 per cent, CM Revanth Reddy said that the government convinced Indian Railways Finance Corporation (IRFC) for funding and secured loan of Rs 13,600 crore from a Japanese entity at an interest rate of 4%. The chief minister questioned the centre for not permitting the transfer of loan from IRFC to the state government. “We have already paid Rs 1,400 crore dues. We also submitted a letter confirming the Reserve Bank’s approval, yet the loan transfer was blocked,” Reddy alleged.

Reddy asked the Union minister from Telangana, G Kishan Reddy, to take the responsibility of release of funds to the state government from IRFC. “The state government is ready to bear the entire cost of the execution of the metro rail expansion project. The centre should issue NOC,” Reddy said.

The Metro Rail expansion project was covering the jurisdiction of four BJP MPs including Kishan Reddy’s Lok Sabha segments, the CM. The chief minister alleged that the Centre discriminated against Telangana and approved only the metro rail projects of Ahmedabad, Uttar Pradesh and Visakhapatnam recently.

“We are not politicising the metro rail issue. Our goal is to take over the first phase of the Metro and complete Phase II,” Reddy said.