DNA Money Edit: Bring loss-making metros on track

We all want a comfortable commute in a metro train, but the cost involved outweighs the earnings, not just in India but across the globe. As the much touted public-private partnership model failed, the capital intensive job of setting up metro rail has fallen on the state governments, which are already facing stress on exchequers, with the help of central government grant. Post commissioning, revenues from fares and non-box collections are insufficient to maintain these very systems. It is not uncommon that losses in the long run lead to deterioration in service quality or uncertainty in their expansion plans.

Though various non-fare alternatives such as advertising, station branding and stalls are allowed to increase revenues, they provide very little financial cushion to the operators. For instance, the 16-year-old Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is bleeding for the last nine years, and still wants to expand further. Similarly, the 10-month-old Kochi Metro is making a daily loss of around Rs 18 lakh and struggling to break even.

As metro systems are for the masses, the operators should be given certain land parcels for commercial exploitation to tide over their losses. The other alternative is to charge a fee on the property transactions neighbouring the metro station buildings.