In celebration of the 425th anniversary of Hyderabad City, HMR has brought out a theme-based table calendar for 2016, highlighting two iconic rail projects with a profound impact on the growth of Hyderabad.
The table calendar juxtaposes the Nizam Gauranteed State Railway (NGSR) which was started in 1870 and the Hyderabad Metro Rail which is scheduled for part opening this year. Both NGSR and HMR are bold and path-breaking attempts of innovative funding of infrastructural facilities. In an unprecedented way, Nizam built the Nizam State Railway of 1373 km across the length and breadth of his Kingdom entirely from his own private funds, then costing a princely sum of Rs 7 crore which stunned the British Empire at that time.
In a similar audacious move, HMR is attempting development of an entire urban rail system of 72 km with private investment of upwards of Rs 14,000 crore for the first time in the world in public-private partnership mode. Both these projects were initially thought to be not feasible, but their happening made the world sit up and take notice. Both have many other similarities, including bringing state-of-the art technologies to the country, multi-modal integration, environment friendly features, larger aim of economic impetus and so on.
The calendar has some rare pictures of Nizam-era rail engines, iconic Secunderabad, Nampally and Kachiguda railway stations and those of ultra modern metro rail coaches and stations, to mention a few. Each month is given a catchy title like `a tale of two railways`, `grand old ladies and elegant debutantes`, `sprawling rail corridors`, `efficient feeder networks`, `investing for a better future`,`engines of growth` etc. Elegant and artistic, the HMR calendar has been conceived and designed by MD, HMR NVS Reddy and an art curator Kali Konduri. (NSS)