Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said innovative and excellent work has been done in the Nagpur Metro project, whose first phase has started operations.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the first commercial run of Nagpur Metro Rail Thursday via video conferencing.

Nitin Gadkari, addressing the gathering, said qualitative, excellent and timely work has been done in Nagpur Metro Rail work.

"I have performed ground-breaking and inauguration ceremony of works worth Rs. 4 lakh crore in the last 15 days. Similarly, Rs. 1.25 lakh crore worth of works will be performed tomorrow in Lucknow. I will be performing ground-breaking ceremony of works worth Rs. 1.9 lakh crore of Delhi-Mumbai Expressway and Dwarka expressway," he said.

The first phase of the Nagpur Metro was flagged off on Thursday

"But, today my happiness for Nagpur metro is most compared to all these as Nagpur is my hometown," he said.

Regular services in the first phase, covering a distance of 13.5 km from Khapri to Sitabuldi stations, will become operational from March 8.

The Nagpur metro project was started in June 2015 and it consists of two corridors. The entire project is expected to completed by financial year 2019-20.

The entire project cost is about Rs. 8,680 crore.