Vital Delhi Metro stretches to open August 6

Passenger services on the extension of the Grey Line to Dhansa Bus Stand and the link between Mayur Vihar Pocket 1 and Trilokpuri on the Pink Line will kick off the same day, said DMRC

The Delhi Metro will on August 6 inaugurate two important stretches on its network — the extension of the Grey Line connecting Dwarka and Najafgarh to Dhansa Bus Stand and the crucial link between Mayur Vihar Pocket 1 and Trilokpuri on the Pink Line (connecting Majlis Park and Shiv Vihar), officials said on Sunday.

With the opening of these sections, the Delhi Metro network will become 390km-long with 286 stations across 10 lines (Sanchit Khanna/HT PHOTO)

Anuj Dayal, executive director (corporate communications), of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), said Union minister for housing and urban affairs Hardeep Singh Puri and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will inaugurate the two sections through a video link, and passenger services on the stretches will kick off later that day.

“While the inauguration function will be held online in the morning (August 6), passenger services will commence on the same day at 3pm on both sections,” Dayal said.

With the opening of these sections, the Delhi Metro network will become 390km-long with 286 stations across 10 lines.

Senior DMRC officials said the 891metre-long Najafgarh-Dhansa Bus Stand section will now take the Metro into the rural areas of Najafgarh, up to the Capital’s border with Haryana.

The 5.4-km Dwarka-Najafgarh corridor was inaugurated in 2019 with three stations — Dwarka, Nangli and Najafgarh. However, despite being a small stretch, it became an important link for commuters travelling on the Blue Line who needed to travel into parts of Najafgarh, which was till that point missing from the city’s Metro map.

Similarly, the missing link of the Pink Line, connecting Mayur Vihar Pocket 1 to Trilokpuri, was a much awaited portion of the corridor. In the absence of this link, the longest Metro corridor (currently 59km-long) operated as two distinct sections. This means that trains currently run from Majlis Park to Mayur Vihar Pocket 1 and then reverse, as do trains travelling between Shiv Vihar and Trilokpuri station.

The Pink Line of the Delhi Metro was planned as the longest corridor of the public transit system, and was supposed to have functioned as a “ring corridor”, connecting all of the network’s existing lines.

However, construction of the link between Mayur Vihar Pocket 1 and Trilokpuri was held up because of land acquisition hurdles at Trilokpuri. With the gap now bridged, this corridor will provide seamless travel for passengers, who can change lines to get to their destinations.

“The Trilokpuri section will connect the entire 59 km-long Pink Line and will connect important landmarks of the city, such as Anand Vihar railway station, Anand Vihar interstate bus terminal, Nizamuddin railway stations, markets in South Extension, INA, Lajpat Nagar, Sarojini Nagar etc,” the DMRC said in a statement.