Key meeting revives hopes for Metro in Nashik city

Nashik: Hopes for a Metro project in Nashik city have been revived with state govt initiating fresh deliberations to identify a suitable transit system for the city, nearly a year after the proposed Neo Metro project was scrapped.A high-level meeting for the proposed Metro system in Nashik was held at the Mantralaya in Mumbai on Wednesday. The meeting was chaired by additional chief secretary of the urban development department (UDD-1) Aseem Kumar Gupta and attended by senior officials including Maha Metro managing director Shravan Hardikar, Nashik divisional commissioner Praveen Gedam, additional municipal commissioner Amit Ranjan, among others.Though no final decision was taken, officials discussed multiple options, including a light rail system similar to those in Taiwan, a monorail, regular metro and a revised version of the earlier tyre-based Neo Metro project. Sources said the meeting marked the beginning of a fresh evaluation process to identify a technically suitable and economically viable metro variant for Nashik.Officials indicated that the final decision would be based on the Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) for the city, which is currently being prepared by Maha Metro. The plan, expected to be completed within a month, will assess traffic patterns, population growth and future mobility needs.A senior Maha Metro official told TOI that the earlier Neo Metro proposal had been based on a mobility survey conducted in 2017. “There has been a substantial change in traffic patterns over the last seven to eight years. Developments such as operationalisation of Nashik airport and rapid urban expansion have altered the mobility dynamics. We are now studying the updated traffic scenario before taking the final call,” the official said.The official added that Maha Metro would submit the CMP to the Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) and present key findings on urban transport needs. “The choice of Metro system will depend entirely on technical feasibility and projected demand,” the official said.