Elevated Metro likely in S Delhi

The underground project cannot meet the deadline of 2010, when the city hosts the Commonwealth Games, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Dec 5, 2007, 02:24:59 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Posh south Delhi’s demand for an underground Metro rail link instead of an elevated one is unlikely to be met. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has opposed the idea, saying apart from resulting in a steep rise in costs, it will need a policy decision by the central government.

Also, the underground project cannot meet the deadline of 2010, when the city hosts the Commonwealth Games, the corporation has told the empowered group of ministers, which is examining the issue alongside other Metro-related complexities.

The ministers’ panel is expected to settle the issue, widely covered by the Hindustan Times, on December 12.

The DMRC said if the Metro has to be underground, the Centre would have to take a major policy decision, stating that all Metro lines in India passing through residential areas should be constructed underground and that even flyovers should not be built in such areas.

The Urban Development Ministry’s opinion is similar. The objective of completing the project before 2010 will be defeated, it told the panel last month.

The ministry said that meeting the demand would set a wrong precedent — other areas in Delhi may also like to seek similar intervention. “In such a situation, it would not be possible to discriminate between the affluent, resourceful and the under privileged section of society,” the ministry said.

The Kailash Colony Women’s Association had sought government intervention to ensure that the proposed four-km Metro stretch between Jungpura Extension and Nehru Place is constructed underground. The association said that an elevated corridor would disturb the environment of Kailash Colony and Greater Kailash-I areas and invade privacy of the people living in the areas.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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