Arjsha99 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0). Cropped.
Madhya Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation has invited fresh bids to lease shop space at two Bhopal stations after its first round found no takers, a sign of how thin traffic remains on the city's metro nearly a year after it opened.
The corporation is offering 710 square metres at Board Office Square and 2,520 square metres at Subhash Nagar. Online bids close on November 16 and open the next day, Free Press Journal reported. Three businesses showed interest when the space was first offered in June, but none signed, citing the lack of parking and low footfall.
The terms ask a lot of a shopkeeper on a quiet line: a ten year licence with a two year lock-in during which the space cannot be surrendered even if sales are poor, a fee that rises 5 per cent a year on a compound basis, and GST, power, water and fit-out costs borne by the tenant.
The core problem is riders. The eight station priority corridor between AIIMS and Subhash Nagar, about seven km long, opened in December 2025. The corporation has not released current passenger figures. Estimates reported by The Times of India in October put weekday ridership at 150 to 500, with up to 1,500 on weekends; Free Press Journal has reported average daily footfall below 100. Managing director S Krishna Chaitanya has put annual running and maintenance costs at ₹20 crore to ₹25 crore and said wider network coverage is expected only by 2028.
Until then, every rupee beyond the ticket counter, from station naming rights to advertising on pillars, matters to an operator whose fares cover only a small part of its costs.
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