French firm Keolis SA to be maintenance contractor for Hyderabad Metro

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad Metro Rail, being developed by infrastructure major L&T, has selected Keolis SA, a subsidiary of SNCF, France's state-owned railway company, as Operations and Maintenance contractor.

According to the release issued by L&T, Keolis will also be involved in testing, commissioning and trial runs of the metro rail.

"L&T Metro Rail (Hyderabad) Limited has decided to involve Keolis SA during the formative stage of the project, in order to take the advantage of their expertise in Metro Rail Operations & Maintenance. Their involvement will give them sufficient time to review the detailed design, to recruit and train the manpower," the release said.

The first phase of Metro is expected to become operational in 2016.