Goa Skybus set for crucial test-run

The skybus project, which is dogged by questions concerning its safety, is a brainchild of the KRCL chairman who has been promoting it as an alternative to the underground metro rail system. One of its main advantages, its proponents say, is that a Skybus can be built over existing road networks and therefore does away with the need to acquire land.

‘‘The technology is not only an innovation but an implementation of a unique and a viable project aimed at better quality and affordability of the common man,’’ B. Rajaram told The Indian Express.

Rajaram, who admitted that the project had met with resistance from certain government quarters, said the Skybus was mainly a derivative of the time-tested railway technology, ‘‘but unfortunately people were not making an effort to understand that’’. He said while other nations had evinced keen interest in it, ‘‘foreign lobbies act as stumbling blocks to innovations inspired by Indian minds.’’

The trial scheduled for next month will prove vital in determining the Skybus’s viability as a mass transport system which can be built at 25 per cent of the cost of an underground metro network.

‘‘We were told as late as March 2004 by the Urban Development Ministry that the project lacked safety parameters. Now the Railway Safety Board will decide whether the project is safe enough or not,’’ said Rajaram.

A prototype of a Skybus Metro Station, costing Rs 7 crore, has been lying ready for the last one-and-half years at Margao. The station is to be used to facilitate the coaches to change tracks.