Are We Creating Outcomes Similar to Power Sector by Proliferating Metro Rail Across Cities in India?

Metro rails mitigate problems of pollution and congestion in crowded Indian cities and are therefore a priority of the government. However, they are also very expensive to build and operate, making their operations loss-making. With increasing proliferation of metro rails and their continuous losses, there would be a need for repeated bailout packages for the metro rail sector in India, similar to the case of the power sector. There are a number of measures that can be taken to mitigate this outcome as apparent from the example of Hong Kong Metro.