Hyderabad: The Hyderabad Metro Rail project has suffered huge losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdowns, stricter COVID-19 guidelines, and the ‘work from home’ approach adopted by many companies have contributed to the loss.
Now the L&T decided to sell its stake in the project. DK Sen, director and senior executive vice-president of L&T said that City-based renewable energy firm Greenko is likely to buy the stake, DC reported.
The L&T Company statement said initially an estimated 4.5 lakh passengers used to travel through Hyderabad metro rail within a year. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the mode of transportation suffered huge losses.
During the first outbreak of the pandemic, it was closed for six months. In September 2020, its operations were started with strict COVID-19 guidelines.
Again the service of the Hyderabad Metro Rail stopped due to the outbreak of the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic. It resulted in a loss of Rs.1766 crores to the Hyderabad Metro Rail in the current financial year.
Prior to this, in the previous financial year, it suffered a loss of Rs.382 crores resulting in a cumulative loss of around Rs.2000 crores.
It has been noted that due to the pandemic, several IT companies are preferring the “work from home” model leading to many employees working from home. It is also contributing to the losses.