Namma Metro to recover project cost from advertisement

Bangalore, Oct 19: The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) is now eyeing on recovering some part of its project cost through revenue from advertisement and commercial use of BMRCL property.

The Bangalore metro services of Reach 1 will be running for a distance of seven km from Mahatma Gandhi road to Byyappanahalli from morning 6am to evening 10 pm from Oct 20.

BMRCL is now providing 10,000 smart cards on limited editions costing Rs. 1,000 per card and carrying a fare value of Rs. 500. Moreover, another 2 lakh cards are on sale. The BMRCL is expected a high sale of cards after 4pm on Oct 20. The corporation is hopeful to earn revenue from the sale of tickets, smart cards and token alone.

According to a BMRCL source, the corporation is aiming to earn 7-15 percent of the revenue through advertisements and property use, as it can not recover its project cost if they only depend upon ticket sales. For an advertisement on the back side of the metro smart card, BMRCL has charged Rs. 5 lakh from each organization as it earned Rs. 2.5 crore through advertisement on the smart card.

Meanwhile, BMRCL has been receiving applications from advertisement consultants, who will help the corporation to chalk out how the station space can be used to maximise revenue from commercial use of the area. The metro authority will soon provide space to set up retail shops with basic necessaries like medicines and stationary in metro stations. ATMs are already set up in each stations of Reach 1.

OneIndia News