The Hindu : Metro coming up ahead of time

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 06, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Metro coming up ahead of time

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, FEB. 5. The Delhi Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, today announced that the upcoming new Kashmere Gate-Central Secretariat underground line of the Metro Railway would be completed by June next year, a full three months ahead of the original deadline of September 2005. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation would thus be the first organisation in the Capital to "prepone rather than postpone a project".

Lauding "the efficiency and people-friendly approach with which work on Delhi Metro has been progressing", Ms Dikshit after taking a three-and-a-half-hour round of various operational and under-construction sites of the project said the DMRC with its high rate of efficiency had assured that it would complete the Kashmere Gate-Central Secretariat line ahead of schedule.

"The work has been progressing satisfactorily and it gives great satisfaction to see state-of-the-art technology being used everywhere,'' she said, adding that absence of disruptions and noise pollution had added to the pleasure of seeing the Metro grow.

"Walking down an 800-metre tunnel today, I was reminded of my visit as a child to the Bhakra Nangal Dam in the late 1950s,'' Ms Dikshit reminisced.

Noting that the Metro had completed one year of successful running which saw Delhiites take great pride in it, the Chief Minister - who also inspected the first two "made-in-India'' Metro trains which arrived here from Bangalore recently -- said it was heartening to see that no damage was done to the system and it looks new even today.

Also, she said, the Metro had been running without loss from Day One due to which there was still no immediate need to raise the fares.

Accompanied by the Delhi Transport Minister, Haroon Yusuf, Principal Secretary, S. Regunathan, and senior Metro officials led by the Managing Director, E. Sreedharan, the Chief Minister also visited the Information Technology Park near Shastri Park Depot.

She said it would see Delhi getting on the IT map in a big way and also help the Metro meet its cost requirements. "Earlier due to paucity of space we were unable to make such a park but now the first building on it alone would provide 30,000 square metres of space for IT services.''

Asserting that the Metro would lead to better facilities, decongestion of the city and reduction in the number of vehicles on the roads, Ms Dikshit said its growing popularity was evident from the growing ridership which jumped from around 30,000 to about 80,000 per day upon the opening of the new Kashmere Gate-Tri Nagar section recently.

When the entire 62 km of Metro corridors are completed next year, the number of private vehicles on the roads would come down sharply, she said, adding that simultaneously work on feeder bus services had also been progressing well.

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