Delhi Metro’s Anand Vihar and Vaishali stations to be renovated
Anand Vihar and Vaishali Metro stations on Delhi's Blue Line will be renovated at a cost of ₹8.95 crore, with work expected to finish in nine months.
The Anand Vihar and Vaishali Metro stations on the Blue Line (Dwarka Sector 21 to Noida City Centre/Vaishali) which are more than a decade old will soon be renovated at a combined cost of ₹8.95 crore, officials said on Monday. The platform, the concourse area and its fittings will be changed to give the stations a newer look, they added.
DMRC has floated a tender which will remain open till September 7, and work is expected to be completed within nine months after awarding of the tender, officials said.
“The renovation work includes changing the station’s shed, side railings, tiles, and other fittings such as pipes and vents. A fresh coat of paint will be applied to the entire station, and sections of the viaducts will be replaced, too. New signage and escalators will be installed if required. This will give the stations a newer look,” said a DMRC official.
The project is part of the Delhi Metro’s ongoing exercise to renovate old Metro stations and more Blue Line Metro stations are expected to be taken up for renovation in the coming months, officials added.
Crumbling infrastructure
The Blue Line is part of Phase 1 of Metro operations in Delhi, with its first section — Dwarka to Barakhamba Road — inaugurated in December 2005. The Line was expanded in sections, up to Anand Vihar in 2010 and Vaishali in 2011, making both stations 13 to 14 years old. Vaishali is the last station on one fork of the Blue Line which splits up from Yamuna Bank, with the other end going to Noida Electronic City in Gautam Budh Nagar. Anand Vihar, an interchange station on the Pink Line, falls on the same fork as Vaishali, with the Kaushambi Metro station falling in between these two stations, which are both fairly busy stations, particularly during peak hours.
Recently, a commuter, Vinay Pratap Singh, flagged the deteriorating condition of the Anand Vihar Metro station to DMRC in a post on X. “The side beam of the escalator is exposed and corroded. Please rectify it as soon as possible to avoid future accidents. Location Anand Vihar Metro station,” Singh said on X, tagging DMRC, which replied and said suitable corrective action was being taken.
Akash Singh, 25, who uses the Blue Line regularly to commute from Vaishali to Dwarka, said the paint is peeling and the vents are corroded in many stations on the Blue and Red Lines.
Red and Blue Lines revamp
A DMRC official said that some stations on the Red Line (Rithala-Shaheed Sthal) had already been renovated and more will be taken up in the coming months. The stations on the Red Line that have already been renovated in the past year include Dilshad Garden, Jhilmil, Mansarovar Park, Shahjahanpur, Welcome, and Shastri Park.
DMRC is also undertaking renovation for multimodal integration (MMI) at three other stations – Chandni Chowk on the Yellow Line and Inderlok and Laxmi Nagar stations on the Blue Line. MMI aims to make other modes of transport, particularly feeder buses and public transport, more accessible from the Metro station.
“At the same time, we have completed painting work at the Barakhamba Road Metro station on the Blue Line. Repair or renovation work is undertaken as and when required based on ground-level inspections,” the official said, adding that renovation of old Metro stations is being done in small segments so that commuters do not face any inconvenience.
DMRC has also been carrying out safety audits of its Metro stations this year, following a wall collapse at the Gokulpuri Metro station on the Pink Line (Majlis Park-Shiv Vihar), which killed a man on a scooter underneath the elevated station. DMRC had last month announced it had replaced the side walls of five elevated stations on the Pink Line with stainless steel railings, further replacing the existing drainage pipes of the station. These included the Gokulpuri station itself and four more stations — Jafrabad, Welcome, East Azad Nagar, and Krishna Nagar.