Metro project progress — RTI to track your city line

Meena lives in Indore. In early 2025 a “priority corridor” of the metro was inaugurated with flags and television cameras. The route was supposed to reach the main government hospital and the interstate bus terminal. Eighteen months later, the viaduct stops mid-air near a half-built pier close to her colony. The barricades are still up, the traffic is worse than ever, and the labourers have not been seen for months. The glossy hoarding at the site still reads “Coming Soon — 2025.”

Nobody at the metro office will tell her when work will restart, how much money has been spent, or who the contractor is. A routine question at the local metro help desk gets a shrug. The state transport minister's press statements promise “early completion” but never give a date. Meena wants to know four simple things: what was sanctioned, what it has cost so far, who is building it, and when it will open. Those four questions are not favours. They are records the law says she can demand.

India now runs the world's third-largest metro network — about 1,095 km operational across 26 cities in 2025-26, up from just 248 km across 5 cities in 2014. Since 2014, 38 metro projects covering 1,051 km have been sanctioned at an estimated cost of ₹3.44 lakh crore, and roughly ₹2.5 lakh crore has already been invested. With that scale comes a paper trail big enough to drown in. This guide shows you how to pull out exactly the four records Meena needs, using only verified facts about the law and the ministry as they stand today.

A metro rail project in India is not one single thing. It is a Detailed Project Report (DPR), a sanction by the Union Cabinet, a state-approved Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) that builds and runs it, and a governing statute that licenses its operation. Knowing which layer holds which record is the difference between a sharp RTI and a bounced one.

The ministry. The nodal Central ministry is the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA). Many older documents, and even some government files, still call it the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD). That name is outdated. The two old ministries — Urban Development, and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation — were merged and renamed MoHUA on 6 July 2017 by Gazette Notification SO 2163(E) dated 06.07.2017. When you file RTI for the sanction and appraisal side, address it to MoHUA, not MoUD. The MRTS (Mass Rapid Transport System) division of MoHUA is the desk that appraises metro proposals, monitors milestones, and releases central financial assistance.

The policy. The Metro Rail Policy 2017 was approved by the Union Cabinet on 16 August 2017 and issued by MoHUA. It sets six things that matter for your questions: (a) Public Private Partnership — complete or unbundled — is essential for every metro project seeking central financial assistance; (b) an Alternate Analysis comparing BRTS, light rail, tram, metro and regional rail is mandatory before a metro is chosen; © a Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (UMTA) is mandatory for cities proposing metro; (d) the economic internal rate of return (EIRR) must cross 14%, replacing the earlier financial IRR threshold of 8%; (e) Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) and Value Capture Finance (VCF) are mandatory; and (f) three central-assistance options are available — PPP with VGF, a 10% lump-sum grant, or 50:50 equity sharing.

The statute. The operational law is the Metro Railways (Operation and Maintenance) Act, 2002 — Act No. 60 of 2002, enacted on 17 December 2002. It was originally titled the Delhi Metro Railways (Operation and Maintenance) Act, 2002, and was renamed and extended to all metropolitan areas except Calcutta by Act 34 of 2009. It has 12 chapters and 105 sections, covering administration, the Commissioner of Metro Railway Safety, fare fixation under sections 33 to 37, accidents, claims and offences. The corporation itself — DMRC, BMRCL, Maha Metro, KMRL, CMRL, LMRCL and the rest — is created separately by a state or central enactment as an SPV.

The public authority. This is the part that decides where your RTI goes. Each metro rail corporation is a public authority under section 2(h) of the RTI Act, 2005, because it is substantially financed by the Central and state governments through equity. So you can file RTI directly at the SPV's Central Public Information Officer for execution records — the DPR, the contractor, the expenditure, the variation orders — and at MoHUA for the sanction and appraisal side. Filing at only one of the two is the most common mistake citizens make.

A metro line moves through five stages, and each stage generates a different record you can ask for.

1. Stage 1 — DPR and Alternate Analysis. The state proposes a metro. A consultant prepares a Detailed Project Report with alignment, station count, length, ridership projections, cost estimate, EIRR and FIRR. The Metro Rail Policy 2017 requires an Alternate Analysis comparing metro with BRTS, light rail, tram and regional rail. The DPR and the Alternate Analysis are the first records worth asking for.
2. Stage 2 — Sanction. MoHUA appraises the DPR, checks the EIRR against the 14% threshold, verifies the financing model, and places it before the Union Cabinet for sanction. The sanction letter fixes the total cost, the central share, the state share, and the completion timeline.
3. Stage 3 — Contracting. The SPV tenders civil works, signalling, rolling stock and systems. Each contract has a value, a contractor name, and a completion date. These are the records that reveal whether the contractor on the ground is the one originally awarded.
4. Stage 4 — Execution and variation. As work proceeds, the SPV records expenditure against sanctioned cost, grants time extensions, and approves variation orders when the scope changes. Cost overrun and time overrun both live here.
5. Stage 5 — Safety certification and commercial opening. The Commissioner of Metro Railway Safety inspects the line, issues a safety certificate, and the SPV fixes a commercial opening date. This is the date your hoarding is actually promising.

When you ask questions, map each question to one stage. That stops the PIO from replying with a vague brochure.

The Metro Rail Policy 2017 is still the governing policy in 2026, but the pipeline has expanded sharply. According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, as recorded in PIB documents of March 2026 and August 2025, 17 metro projects covering 467.46 km were approved between FY 2021-22 and FY 2025-26. These include Bangalore Metro Phase 2A and 2B (58.19 km), Chennai Metro Phase II (118.9 km), Bangalore Metro Phase 3 (44.65 km), Delhi Metro Phase IV (20.7 km), the Delhi Metro Rithala to Kundli corridor (26.43 km), and Nagpur Metro Phase II (43.8 km). Cities with operational metro in 2025-26 include Delhi and the NCR at about 393 km, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Lucknow, Pune, Ahmedabad, Kochi (including the Kochi Water Metro), Jaipur, Nagpur, Kanpur, Agra, Gandhinagar, and the Bhopal and Indore priority corridors inaugurated in 2025.

What does this mean for Meena? The Indore priority corridor is a real, sanctioned project with a real DPR, a real contractor and a real cost. The extension she is staring at is either a sanctioned Phase II line, a sanctioned priority-corridor extension, or a proposal still waiting for sanction. The only way to find out which — and to fix the stalled site — is to ask for the records. And because the pipeline is still being spent down, the trail is fresh right now.

You will file two applications in parallel — one to the SPV for execution records, one to MoHUA for sanction records. This is the single most important move in the whole guide. File only one and you will be sent to the other.

Step 1 — Identify the public authorities.

1. Execution authority: the metro rail corporation (SPV) for your city — for example, DMRC for Delhi, BMRCL for Bengaluru, Maha Metro for Mumbai, Nagpur and Pune, KMRL for Kochi, CMRL for Chennai, LMRCL for Lucknow. Address the application to the Central Public Information Officer of the SPV.
2. Sanction authority: the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, MRTS division, Government of India. This office holds the Cabinet sanction, the EIRR appraisal, and the central financial assistance tranche records.

Step 2 — Prepare your questions. Ask for specific, dated records — not “details.” Six strong sample questions, each mapped to a stage:

1. DPR and alignment: “Furnish a copy of the sanctioned Detailed Project Report for the [your city] metro [phase/corridor name], including alignment, length, station count, ridership estimate, EIRR and FIRR as approved.”
2. Sanctioned cost and revised cost: “Furnish the original sanctioned cost and the latest revised cost of the [your city] metro [corridor name], with the date of each revision and the reason for cost overrun, if any.”
3. Contractor and contract value: “Furnish the name of the civil-works contractor, the contract value, the award date, and the contractual completion date for the [your city] metro [corridor name] viaduct and stations.”
4. Expenditure and variation orders: “Furnish the cumulative expenditure incurred on the [your city] metro [corridor name] as on [date], and a list of all time extensions and variation orders granted, with dates and amounts.”
5. Milestone and projected opening: “Furnish the latest milestone monitored by MoHUA for the [your city] metro [corridor name], the latest projected commercial opening date, and the date of the last site inspection by the Commissioner of Metro Railway Safety, if any.”
6. PPP and financing model: “Furnish the financing model approved for the [your city] metro — PPP with VGF, 10% lump-sum grant, or 50:50 equity — and the central financial assistance released instalment-wise, with dates and amounts.”

Step 3 — Use the right form and fee.

1. For the Central application to MoHUA, file online through the Central RTI portal at rtionline.gov.in, maintained by the DoPT and hosted by NIC. Select Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, pay the Rs.10 fee by UPI, debit or credit card, or net banking. The registration number is in the format DOPTR/E/YYYY/XXXXX. First appeal can also be filed online. See RTI for Beginners: Everything You Need to Know Before Filing Your for the basics of the online filing process and RTI Fees by State and Online Portal Directory (2026) for the fee structure. You can also file offline with an Indian Postal Order for Rs.10 payable to the Accounts Officer.
2. For the State SPV application, the fee and format follow your state's RTI rules. Most states charge Rs.10; a few differ. The Central online portal covers only Central public authorities, so the SPV application usually goes offline by registered post with an Indian Postal Order, unless your state runs its own RTI portal. You can draft both applications quickly with the AI RTI drafting tool at https://righttoinformation.wiki/tools/ai-rti-draft-app.html .

Step 4 — Submit and keep proof. File by hand and take a stamped receiving copy, or send by registered post and keep the acknowledgement, or file online and save the registration number. Proof of submission is your protection if the reply is delayed.

Step 5 — Wait 30 days. The PIO must reply within 30 days of receiving your application under section 7(1) of the RTI Act. If the matter concerns the life or liberty of a person, the window is 48 hours — but ordinary project-progress queries do not qualify. If the PIO misses the deadline, the information must be supplied free of cost under section 7(6).

1. A copy of an approved photo identity proof (Aadhaar, voter ID, passport, or driving licence) if the SPV asks for it, though it is not mandatory under the Central rules.
2. A BPL certificate if you are claiming the fee waiver — BPL applicants are exempt from the Rs.10 fee under the RTI Rules 2012, Rule 3.
3. The exact project name and phase as it appears on the SPV website or a government press release, so the PIO cannot claim “no such project.”
4. The Indian Postal Order or printout of the online payment receipt as fee proof for the offline SPV application.
5. Any earlier correspondence or public replies about the project, if you have them, to anchor your question.

1. Filing only at the SPV. The SPV holds execution records but not the sanction-side paper. File MoHUA too for the Cabinet sanction, the EIRR appraisal, and the central financial assistance tranches.
2. Using the old ministry name “MoUD.” It was renamed MoHUA on 6 July 2017. Using the dead name can bounce your application between desks. See RTI Act, 2005 (Amended 14 Nov 2025): Full Text for how the RTI Act defines a public authority.
3. Asking vague questions. “Give me metro details” gets you a brochure. Ask for named records with dates — the sanctioned DPR, the contract award letter, the variation order register, the latest milestone date.
4. Forgetting the financing model. The Metro Rail Policy 2017 made PPP, VGF, TOD and VCF mandatory. If you do not ask which model was approved, you miss the most politically loaded record in the file.
5. Accepting a blanket “commercial confidence” refusal. SPVs often cite section 8(1)(d) (commercial confidence) or section 8(1)(e) (fiduciary relationship) to refuse DPRs and contractor records. Both exemptions carry a larger public interest override under section 8(2), and both are subject to severability under section 10. The Central Information Commission has held, in Gita Dewan Verma v. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (CIC/WB/A/2007/00671, decided 3 June 2008), that metro corporations are public authorities and their project and consultancy records are disclosable, and ordered them supplied free of cost under section 7(6) when the PIO missed the deadline.
6. Skipping the first appeal. A vague or partial reply is not the end. File a First Appeal under section 19(1) within 30 days of the deadline. Use the first-appeal drafting tool at https://righttoinformation.wiki/tools/first-appeal-app.html and the timeline calculator at https://righttoinformation.wiki/tools/timeline-calculator-app.html to hit every date correctly.

RTI is powerful because it has a built-in ladder. If the PIO ignores you or gives a vague reply, you do not stop there.

1. First appeal: If no reply arrives within 30 days, or the reply is unsatisfactory, file a First Appeal under section 19(1) with the First Appellate Authority in the same department, within 30 days of the deadline. The FAA must decide within 30 days, extendable to 45.
2. Second appeal: If the FAA also fails, file a Second Appeal under section 19(3) with the Central Information Commission for MoHUA, or your State Information Commission for the SPV. There is no fee for a second appeal to the Central Information Commission.
3. Complaint under section 18: You can file a direct complaint to the Information Commission if the PIO never replied at all or refused to accept the application.
4. Penalty: Under section 20(1), the Information Commission can impose a penalty of Rs.250 per day of delay on the PIO, up to a maximum of Rs.25,000.

For metro projects, the most common outcome is that the SPV replies with partial information and the MoHUA PIO redirects you to the state. Filing both applications in parallel, and naming the exact project in each, prevents that pass-the-buck response. You can check any reply you receive against best-practice standards with the PIO reply checker at https://righttoinformation.wiki/tools/pio-reply-checker-app.html .

To: The Central Public Information Officer
[Name of Metro Rail Corporation SPV / Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, MRTS Division]
[Address]

Subject: Application under section 6(1) of the Right to Information Act, 2005
         — Status of the [your city] metro [phase/corridor name]

Sir/Madam,

I, [your full name], a citizen of India, request the following information
under section 6(1) of the Right to Information Act, 2005, concerning the
[full project name as on the SPV website or a government press release]:

1. A copy of the sanctioned Detailed Project Report, including alignment,
   length, station count, ridership estimate, EIRR and FIRR as approved.
2. The original sanctioned cost and the latest revised cost, with the date
   of each revision and the reason for cost overrun, if any.
3. The name of the civil-works contractor, the contract value, the award
   date, and the contractual completion date.
4. The cumulative expenditure incurred as on [date], and a list of all
   time extensions and variation orders granted, with dates and amounts.
5. The latest milestone monitored by MoHUA, the latest projected commercial
   opening date, and the date of the last site inspection by the
   Commissioner of Metro Railway Safety, if any.
6. The approved financing model (PPP with VGF / 10% lump-sum grant / 50:50
   equity) and the central financial assistance released instalment-wise,
   with dates and amounts.

I request that the information be supplied in printed or electronic form.
The application fee of Rs.10 is paid by [Indian Postal Order number /
online receipt number]. I declare that I am a citizen of India.

If parts of the requested information are held by another public authority,
I request that the application be transferred to that authority under
section 6(3) within five days of receipt.

Date: [date]
Place: [your city]
Signature: [yours]
Name: [your full name]
Address: [your postal address]

Yes, in most cases. SPVs often cite section 8(1)(d) (commercial confidence) or section 8(1)(e) (fiduciary relationship) to refuse DPRs. Both exemptions carry a larger public interest override under section 8(2) and are subject to severability under section 10. The Central Information Commission held in Gita Dewan Verma v. DMRC (CIC/WB/A/2007/00671, 3 June 2008) that metro corporations are public authorities and their project and consultancy records are disclosable. Note that DPRs prepared by DMRC for Kochi, Pune, Lucknow, Nagpur and Jaipur have been shared online, which contradicts any blanket confidentiality claim. File a First Appeal citing this order if refused.

Both, in parallel. The SPV holds execution records — the DPR, the contractor, the expenditure, the variation orders. MoHUA holds the sanction side — the Cabinet sanction, the EIRR appraisal, the financing model, the central financial assistance tranches. Filing only one leaves you with half the trail.

No. The Central RTI portal at rtionline.gov.in covers only Central public authorities such as MoHUA. State metro SPVs are state public authorities, so the SPV application usually goes offline by registered post with an Indian Postal Order, unless your state runs its own RTI portal.

That itself is a useful answer — it means the stalled site is a proposal, not a sanctioned line, and the money being spent may be pre-sanction work. File a follow-up with MoHUA asking for the current appraisal status of the proposal and the expected date of Cabinet sanction.

Ask the SPV for the original sanctioned cost and the latest revised cost, with the date and reason for each revision, and a list of all time extensions and variation orders granted. Pair this with a MoHUA question on the central financial assistance released instalment-wise, so you can see whether the overrun is being met by the Centre, the state, or a fresh sanction.

The Central application fee is Rs.10, payable by Indian Postal Order, banker's cheque, demand draft, cash against receipt, or electronic means under the RTI Rules 2012, Rule 3. BPL applicants are exempt on producing a BPL certificate. Most states also charge Rs.10; check your state's rules at RTI Fees by State and Online Portal Directory (2026). If the PIO misses the 30-day deadline, the information must be supplied free of cost under section 7(6).

Yes. Under section 4 of the RTI Act, every public authority must publish suo motu details of its projects, funds and beneficiaries. The Central Information Commission directed DMRC, in CIC/OK/C/2006/00049 decided 5 February 2007, to comply with section 4 suo motu disclosure and modify its website. If your SPV has not published project-wise funds and milestones, your RTI forces compliance.

Yes. The safety inspection and certification of a metro line before commercial opening is part of the Metro Railways (Operation and Maintenance) Act, 2002. You can ask for the date of the last safety inspection and the status of the safety certificate, which tells you how close the line is to opening.

1. Metro Rail Policy 2017, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs: [mohua.gov.in](https://www.mohua.gov.in/upload/whatsnew/59a3f7f130eecMetro_Rail_Policy_2017.pdf)
2. PIB — Cabinet approves Metro Rail Policy (16 August 2017): [pib.gov.in](https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=170009)
3. Metro Railways (Operation and Maintenance) Act, 2002, Act No. 60 of 2002: [indiacode.nic.in](https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/2008)
4. Gazette Notification SO 2163(E) dated 06.07.2017 — MoHUA renamed: [mohua.gov.in](https://mohua.gov.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/AR201819-1-105.pdf)
5. PIB — Status of Metro Rail Projects in India (March 2026): [pib.gov.in](https://static.pib.gov.in/WriteReadData/specificdocs/documents/2026/mar/doc2026315824501.pdf)
6. PIB — Metro Rail progress (August 2025): [pib.gov.in](https://static.pib.gov.in/WriteReadData/specificdocs/documents/2025/aug/doc2025810604101.pdf)
7. Right to Information Act, 2005 — full text: [cic.gov.in](https://rtionline.gov.in)
8. RTI Rules 2012 (fee and payment modes): [niti.gov.in](https://niti.gov.in/sites/default/files/2025-07/RTI%20Rules%20Final%20PDF.pdf)
9. Gita Dewan Verma v. DMRC, CIC/WB/A/2007/00671, decided 3 June 2008: [architexturez.net](https://architexturez.net/doc/az-cf-165522)
10. Gita Dewan Verma v. DMRC, section 4 suo motu, CIC/OK/C/2006/00049, decided 5 February 2007: [architexturez.net](https://architexturez.net/doc/az-cf-165627)
11. DMRC property development records, CIC/OK/A/2007/00646, decided 16 October 2007: [architexturez.net](https://architexturez.net/doc/az-cf-165649)
12. BMRCL refusal to share DPR citing section 8(1)(d) and 8(1)(e): [thehindu.com](https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/bmrcl-cites-delhi-metro-example-for-not-sharing-dpr/article19841467.ece)
13. Central RTI online portal: [rtionline.gov.in](https://rtionline.gov.in)

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Last reviewed: 4 July 2026.