Patna Metro gets 7,500 entries for logo contest

PATNA: Patna Metro Rail Corporation (PMRC) has received more than 7,500 entries for its logo contest from people across the country, spanning small towns and big cities, a senior official said on Friday.
Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is working on the Patna Metro project, which is aimed at decongesting the city using a mass rapid transit network for the first time. “We have received an overwhelming response of over 7,500 entries from across the country.This includes big metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, and also small cities like Guwahati, besides Patna. So, people have shown great interest,” a senior PMRC official told PTI.
PMRC is the managing authority of the Patna Metro, and the principal secretary of the state government’s urban development and housing department holds the charge of the managing director of the corporation.
The entries are being evaluated by a five-member jury and the final decision is expected to be taken on the PMRC logo by September end, the official said. There was no age bar on sending entries. A concept note too was to be attached with the entry, as per the contest specifications.
“Out of about 7,500 entries, nearly 2,500 are from Bihar, with Patna accounting for close to 2,000 entries. All the big educational institutions are located in Patna, from across disciplines, so this huge response,” the official said.
Patna entries have come from IIT, BIT, NIT, Patna University and its colleges, NIFT, and even schoolchildren have sent designed logos as part of the competition which ended on July 23.
“We had invited entries as part of a pan-India contest from July 8 onwards. The first prize entails a prize money of Rs 50,000 while those whose designs will finish on second and third positions, will walk away with Rs 25,000 and Rs 11,000, respectively,” the official said.
The PMRC, while announcing the contest, had underlined that contestants should “design a logo which will not only represent Patna, but also the urban transport revolution that will be brought to the city in the near future”.
The jury consists of PMRC chief, senior officials of the Patna Metro, and experts from NIFT-Patna and Patna College of Arts and Crafts, the official said.
The winner will be selected on the basis of creativity, originality, technical quality, creative ability and visual impact. Also, a factor will be, how well the vision of the PMRC has been depicted in the logo, the official said.
“We have received entries which have been fully digitally designed, as also hand-drawn illustrations. The jury will take the call on the entries, and it will be then finally decided by the PMRC MD,” the official said.
“The response was so massive and unexpected that PMRC servers were overburdened suddenly, crashing at times, due to huge volume of data flow, and storage size of email account got exhausted, so more space had to be bought online, he said. PTI