92-km high-speed railway link between Delhi, Meerut cleared
The corridor will originate from Sarai Kale Khan terminus, and pass through Ghaziabad before terminating at Modipuram in Meerut. Around 60 km of the corridor is expected to be elevated while 30 km will be underground.
If you are one of the thousands who brave traffic snarls and irate motorists while commuting between Delhi and Meerut every day, here’s some good news.
In five years from now, you will be able to cover the distance of 92 km in 48 minutes – as opposed to the present travel duration of two to three hours – sitting comfortably in high-speed trains that ply at 160 km/hour.
The National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC), an autonomous body under the urban development (UD) ministry, approved the `21,920-crore Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut corridor of the proposed Rapid Rail Transit System (RRTS) on Tuesday.
“The NCRTC board chaired by UD secretary Rajiv Gauba has approved the RRTS corridor, which was conceived over 10 years ago. The NCRTC will implement the project. Once work starts, it will take anywhere between four and five years to complete the project,” said a UD ministry official.
The Delhi-Meerut RRTS will carry around 7.9 lakh passengers by 2024, when the peak-hour peak-day traffic is expected to stand at 18,224. Each train will have compartments with 2x2 seats and one business class coach.
The corridor will originate from Sarai Kale Khan terminus, and pass through Ghaziabad before terminating at Modipuram in Meerut. Around 60 km of the corridor is expected to be elevated while 30 km will be underground.
The service will run underground in the Delhi and Meerut areas (including the Yamuna crossing). It will have 17 stations, 11 elevated and six underground.
Three corridors – Delhi-Meerut, Delhi-Panipat and Delhi-Alwar – have been identified for the first phase of the RRTS.
At a later stage, as many as 16 towns in the National Capital Region (NCR) will be linked to Delhi through the high speed air-conditioned rail network.
A ministry official said the NCRTC board also approved the realignment of the Delhi-Panipat and Delhi-Alwar RRTS corridors on Tuesday. Besides this, it decided to constitute multi-modal integration at Sarai Kale Khan, Anand Vihar, ISBT (Kashmiri Gate) and Aerocity in Delhi to enable easy transition from one mode of transit to another.
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