THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as K-Rail claims that NITI Aayog hasn’t made any final calculation on total project cost for the SilverLine semi-high-speed rail project, NITI Aayog data retracts K-Rail claims. An RTI reply by NITI Aayog clearly states that as per the agency’s assessment, the project cost (as per 2020 March estimate) would come to around Rs 1.26 lakh crore, as against DPR estimate of Rs 63,940 crore.
Refuting the statement by Railway expert Alok Kumar Verma during the parallel debate on SilverLine that the NITI Aayog calculated the project cost as Rs 1.3 lakh crore, the KRDCL issued an official statement on Wednesday, stating that the agency has made no such calculation. However, an RTI reply issued by NITI Aayog to M T Thomas, of Peruva, in November 2020 has gone into details of the cost factor. The agency assessed the total project cost – as per March 2020 prices – would be Rs 1,00,352 crore.
