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How Manmohan nixed Sky Bus project for Hyd
The Sky Bus as a mode of transport in South Asian countries had so impressed Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, then prime minister of Malaysia, that he offered Rs 2,000 crore (over $322 million) as an outright grant to finance the project in Hyderabad.
New Delhi: The Sky Bus as a mode of transport in South Asian countries had so impressed Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, then prime minister of Malaysia, that he offered Rs 2,000 crore (over $322 million) as an outright grant to finance the project in Hyderabad.
Unfortunately, then prime minister Manmohan Singh, to whom Badawi had made the offer in a letter dated September 18, 2006, did not respond, paving the way for the promising project's gradual demise, B Rajaram, former managing director of Konkan Railway, told this reporter from Herendon in the US.
Badawi had also mentioned his choice of Hyderabad because of its long association with Rajaram, who had designed and developed the Sky Bus, regarded as one of the most iconic symbols of Indian engineering skills. Significantly, then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had allocated Rs 500 crore for the Sky Bus project in Goa, on the basis of APJ Abdul Kalam's recommendation as his principal scientific advisor, to support "the initiative to redefine metro technology".
"Kalam and fellow scientists of the likes of Anil Kakodkar and P Ramarao, examined me, before being convinced of the Sky Bus' utility and viability on scientific grounds," said Rajaram.
By:Shudip Talukdar
