Odisha Is Building the Wrong Transport System
The debate in Odisha is Metro vs MRTS. That is the wrong question. The right question is: what transport system does a multi-city $500 billion economy actually need?
Founder, Majhi Group & Majhi OS
Odisha's official vision targets a $500 billion economy and 40% urbanisation by 2036. If that vision is taken seriously, and I think it should be, then the transport question the state is currently debating is being asked the wrong way.
The debate as it is usually framed: should Odisha build a Metro or an MRTS? Which is better? Which is more modern? Which will solve Bhubaneswar's congestion?
The debate as it should be framed: what transport system does a multi-nodal economic region need in order to function as one?
These are different questions with different answers.
The mistake: thinking like one city
The instinct in transport planning, especially in India, is to look at what large cities have done and replicate it. Delhi has Metro. Mumbai has Metro. Hyderabad has Metro. Bengaluru has Metro. Therefore, as Bhubaneswar grows, it should have Metro.
This reasoning treats Odisha's urbanisation as a single-city problem. It is not.
By 2036, the economic and demographic geography of Odisha is not going to look like a larger Bhubaneswar. It is going to look like an interconnected cluster: Bhubaneswar as the administrative and technology center, Cuttack as the commercial and legal hub, Puri as the cultural and tourism anchor, and the districts of Khurda, Jatni, and the coastal corridor as industrial and manufacturing zones.
These are not suburbs of one city. They are distinct nodes in a regional economy that need to function together. Infrastructure decisions shape economic geography for decades, a transport system designed for a single dense city will produce a single dense city, even when the underlying geography wants to be something more distributed.
What the right comparison is
The models worth studying for Odisha are not Delhi Metro or Bengaluru Metro. They are:
The Tokyo metropolitan rail system, which connects a sprawling multi-city region across 40+ million people through a network of regional and express lines, not just urban subway.
The Paris RER, a regional express rail network that extends far beyond the city core, making distributed economic activity viable by collapsing travel time across the region.
The Delhi-NCR RRTS, India's own experiment with regional rapid transit connecting Delhi to Gurgaon, Noida, Faridabad, and Ghaziabad as a coherent economic region rather than a city with satellites.
The German regional rail model, the Regionalbahn and S-Bahn systems that make it genuinely practical to live in one city and work in another within a metropolitan region.
What these systems share is that they are designed for regional economic integration, not just urban mobility. The unit of planning is the region, not the city.
Why MRTS fits Odisha better
A Mass Rapid Transit System, surface or elevated rail connecting multiple nodes across a metropolitan region, fits Odisha's actual geography and growth pattern better than an urban subway Metro, for several reasons.
First, the distances involved. Bhubaneswar to Cuttack is roughly 25 kilometers. Bhubaneswar to Puri is about 60 kilometers. These are not distances that urban Metro systems are designed for. A Metro optimized for dense intra-city movement will not make the Bhubaneswar-Puri corridor functionally integrated. A regional rail system can.
Second, cost and coverage. Metro systems require enormous underground or elevated infrastructure investment per kilometer. For the cost of a city-scale Metro network, you can build a regional MRTS that covers far more economic territory. In a state that is still building the foundations of its formal economy, coverage beats depth.
Third, industrial corridor connectivity. Odisha's port infrastructure and the industrial corridors along the coast, Paradip, Dhamra, Gopalpur, are not going to be served by Bhubaneswar's Metro. A regional system that connects port, industrial zone, and urban center as a single network is a different economic proposition entirely.
The decision being made right now
Transport infrastructure decisions are irreversible on the timescales that matter. The system you build shapes the city - and the economic region - that forms around it. You do not get to undo the network effects of 30 years of infrastructure once they have set.
The choices made in this decade will define what Odisha's economy looks like in 2036 and beyond. A transport system designed for Bhubaneswar-as-a-city will produce Bhubaneswar-as-a-city. A transport system designed for Odisha-as-a-regional-economy will produce something with significantly more scope.
The question is not Metro vs MRTS as a technical preference. It is what kind of economic future Odisha is choosing to build, and what infrastructure is required to make that future actually work.
Asking the right question first would help.
See also: Bhubaneswar: Can It Become an AI City?, Odisha Infrastructure: The Foundation Being Built, The Biopharma Gap Eastern India Hasn't Noticed
Sources
National Capital Region Transport Corporation: Delhi-NCR RRTS Project Overview
McKinsey Global Institute: India's Urban Awakening: Building Inclusive Cities
World Bank: India Urban Transport: Investing in Sustainable Mobility
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the Metro vs MRTS debate in Odisha being asked the wrong way?
Because it's framed as a city-level question when the underlying geography is a regional economic question. The instinct is to look at what large Indian cities have done, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad all built Metro, and assume Bhubaneswar should do the same as it grows. But Odisha's urbanisation by 2036 won't look like a larger Bhubaneswar, it will look like an interconnected cluster: Bhubaneswar as administrative and technology center, Cuttack as commercial and legal hub, Puri as cultural and tourism anchor, and coastal districts as industrial and manufacturing zones. These are not suburbs of one city. They are distinct nodes in a regional economy that need to function together. Infrastructure decisions made at the city scale produce city-scale outcomes. The state's $500 billion economy vision requires infrastructure designed for regional economic integration, not urban mobility.
Why does MRTS fit Odisha's actual geography better than Metro?
Three concrete reasons. Distance: Bhubaneswar to Cuttack is 25 kilometres; Bhubaneswar to Puri is 60 kilometres. These are regional distances, not urban distances. A Metro optimised for dense intra-city movement will not make the Bhubaneswar-Puri corridor functionally integrated. A regional rail system can. Cost and coverage: Metro requires enormous infrastructure investment per kilometre, for the cost of a city-scale Metro network, you can build a regional MRTS covering far more economic territory. In a state still building foundational formal economy, coverage beats depth. Industrial connectivity: Odisha's port infrastructure and industrial corridors at Paradip, Dhamra, and Gopalpur will not be served by Bhubaneswar's Metro. A regional system connecting port, industrial zone, and urban center as a single network is a different economic proposition entirely.
What economic future does the transport infrastructure choice actually determine for Odisha?
Transport infrastructure decisions are irreversible on the timescales that matter, thirty years of network effects, once set, are not undone. A system designed for Bhubaneswar-as-a-city will produce a single dense city with the districts and coastal corridors remaining disconnected from its economic activity. A system designed for Odisha-as-a-regional-economy, connecting ports, industrial corridors, tourism anchors, and urban nodes as one functioning system, enables economic activity to distribute across the region rather than concentrate in one city. The models worth studying are the Tokyo metropolitan rail network, the Paris RER, and India's own Delhi-NCR RRTS: all designed for regional economic integration rather than urban mobility. The choice being made now will define what Odisha's economy looks like in 2036. Asking the right question first determines whether the infrastructure matches the ambition.
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