The construction work on India's first light rail transport service will complete one year on June 30 and despite initial delay due to land acquisition and other issues, the Rs1,000-crore project is expected to be ready by January 2013.
Driving past the DLF Cybercity area along the Gurgaon Expressway, one can easily notice erected concrete piers and construction activities being carried out by the Rapid MetroRail Gurgaon Limited (RMGL).
"As many as 73 of 344 pillars on this 6.1-km stretch, have been erected. Casting of 41 concrete girders of the total 286 has been completed. However, we are still to start erecting girders," said Sanjiv Rai, managing director of RMGL which is the consortium company of ITNL Enso Rail Systems (IERS), a unit of IL&FS and DLF Metro Limited.
The Rapid Metro will connect Delhi Metro Rail Corporation's Sikanderpur Metro station with a loop of tracks of about 6.1km inside DLF City.
"Though work on the project picked up slowly, it has regained the momentum and would be completed in stipulated time period of 30 months, by January 2013. Our engineers are visiting Siemen's China production facility, where the coaches are being produced, for inspection," Rai said.
Unlike DMRC's Metro service, stations planned by RMGL are of smaller size of 75 metres and can accommodate a three-coach train only.
{{/usCountry}}Unlike DMRC's Metro service, stations planned by RMGL are of smaller size of 75 metres and can accommodate a three-coach train only.
{{/usCountry}}"In case of rise in ridership, we would not increase the number of coaches but can increase frequency and reduce waiting time from initial 4-minute to 2-minute by adding more trains. DMRC's stations are bigger and can accommodate trains with 6-8 coaches," he added.
"We have taken enough care and erected barricades in such a way that traffic flow does not get disturbed," Rai said.