Gurugram: The impact of delay on a public infrastructure project is sometimes best, and most starkly, reckoned in numbers. The Gurugram Metro, conceived at Rs 5,452 crore, will now cost Rs 10,266 crore—nearly double—after years of administrative inaction, unresolved funding modalities and a prolonged wait for foreign lenders.
The Haryana Cabinet, meeting on Monday under Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, approved the revised project cost along with supplementary reports and a proposal to fund the entire soft loan component through the World Bank, after the European Investment Bank (EIB) failed to confirm its participation for years.The 28.5-kilometre elevated corridor connecting the city’s Millennium City Centre to Cyber City, with all of 27 stations, has been in the making for well over a decade now. The Detailed Project Report was prepared by M/s RITES and approved by the Haryana Council of Ministers as far back as August 2020, and subsequently cleared by the Government of India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the project on 16 February, 2024. One-and-a-half years later, Union Minister for Power, Housing and Urban Affairs Manohar Lal Khattar and Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini attended a bhumi poojan organised by Gurugram Metro Rail Limited at the Gurugram University Campus Auditorium in September 2025, a ceremony meant to mark the actual start of construction.The revised estimate of Rs 10,266.54 crore against the original Rs 5,452.72 crore reflects price escalation between 2019 and 2023, revision in Goods and Services Tax (GST) rates, standalone planning requirements for the corridor after changes in its integration with Rapid Metro, the requirement of a full-fledged depot and additional rolling stock, modifications in the Regional Rapid Transit System RRTS) alignment, and the provision of a metro spur to Gurugram Railway Station.
