The main corridors of Delhi Metro’s Phase-III project will be open to public only by June next year.
Even as 95 per cent of work on the project has been completed, the issue of residents refusing to shift and vacate land parcels for construction of viaducts continues.
Owing to this, trial runs on almost all the planned stretches of the Pink Line (Majlis Park-Shiv Vihar) and Magenta Line (Botanical Garden-Janakpuri West) have been delayed by several months.
Even as trials on a small stretch from Kalindi Kunj to Kalkaji of the Magenta Line is going to be begin Thursday onwards, they won’t happen on most of the remaining part of the line till November.
Three-month delay
Terminal 1 IGI Airport-Janakpuri (West) stretch will be tested in November, a delay of three months.
The disputed land parcels have also forced the DMRC to run trials on shorter stretches as against the original plan where 14-19 kms had to be tested in one go.
For example, it had planned to run trial runs on a 19-km-stretch from Majlis Park to Lajpat Nagar, but that has now been cut to Delhi Cantt.-Moti Bagh.
Disputed land parcels
Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) Managing Director Mangu Singh revealed on Wednesday that the problem of three land pockets at Trilokpuri, Mayapuri and Punjabi Bagh have not been cleared even now because of which construction of viaducts of about 1.5 km has been stuck.
“The Magenta Line has no problem and is on track, but problems persist on the Pink Line at the same three spots. While there has been some progress in negotiation with locals in two plots, the one at Trilokpuri is still a sticking point,” said Mr Singh. Senior officials in the corporation said that the relocation process is turning out to be a communal one as the Muslim residents are unwilling to shift where the Hindu locals live and vice versa.
Officials said that even once the viaducts are built, it will take six months for trial runs due to the new signalling system.
