Badarpur gets Metro services from today

More south Delhi residents will come under the Metro network from tomorrow with DMRC opening the five-km Sarita Vihar–Badarpur section of the transit system.

Residents of Mohan Estate, Tughlakabad, Kalindi Kunj and also the satellite town of Faridabad in Haryana would finally be blessed by Metro connectivity. Nearing four months after missing deadline, the Delhi Metro services will finally start benefiting lakhs of commuters of these areas from Friday.

HT Image

The five kilometre stretch between Sarita Vihar and Badarpur of the Central Secretariat-Badarpur corridor that has three stations, and could not be made operational along with the rest of the corridor before the Commonwealth Games due to incompletion of work, it is finally going to be operational from Friday, said a Delhi Metro Rail Corporations (DMRC) spokesperson.

HT launches Crick-it, a one stop destination to catch Cricket, anytime, anywhere. Explore now!

“The stretch will be opened for the public from 8 am on Friday. On Thursday we received the safety clearance for the stretch from commissioner for metro rail safety (CMRS), RK Kardam,” DMRC spokesperson Anuj Dayal said, adding, “While services on the first day (Friday) will commence from 8 am, the regular commencement timings will be from 6 am onwards from Saturday,” said Dayal.

With the opening of the stretch, footfall of the entire Central Secretariat-Badarpur corridor is expected to increase by at least one lakh. Currently, the total footfall on the Central Secretariat-Sarita Vihar corridor is approximately 1.25 lakh, said DMRC officials.

However, as per the detailed project report (DPR) the entire section is expected to benefit over 3.60 lakh passengers per day by the end of 2011.

To cater to the additional passengers, DMRC will press four additional standard gauge trains on the corridor with a peak hour frequency of four minutes. Presently 16 trains are functional on the stretch that caters to passengers between Central Secretariat and Sarita Vihar.

Phase 3 Metro expansions by July

Subhendu ray
subhendu.ray@hindustantimes.com

Delhi Metro is likely to start expansions under proposed phase 3 by July this year. Once started, it will take maximum five years to complete the project that got the in principal nod from Delhi government.

According to DMRC officials they had started ground works including topographic survey, geo-technical survey and station planning etc immediately after the proposed expansion of Metro network under phase 3 got government clearance.

“For major works we will invite global tenders while for smaller works we will invite tenders from national players,” Mangu Singh, director (works) told HT.

He said that DMRC is planning to start construction works by July this year. However, he said that so far there is no clarity on the funding structure for the R21,468 crore project.

It was learnt that DMRC would invite global tenders for works on rolling stock, signaling system, electrical equipments, track-laying among others, while the corporation would invite tender applications from national players for civil constructions.

A senior officer of DMRC, on condition of anonymity said: “We are already in the final stage of ground surveys for the proposed Central Secretariat to Red Fort corridor and Jahangir Puri to Badli corridor.”