With the opening of the ITO metro station on Monday, all eyes are now set on the Badarpur-Faridabad line.
The corridor, another extension of the existing ITO-Central Secretariat (Violet) line, will be thrown open by next month. Soon after that, the Jahangirpuri-Samaypur Badli corridor will also be commissioned.
According to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), trial runs in the 14-km Badarpur-Faridabad section are on in full swing and so far no issues have been reported.
“The corridor will be open to public within a month. Everything is ready and the trial runs are going fine,” said DMRC Executive Director (Corporate Communications) Anuj Dayal.
The Commissioner for Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) is likely to inspect the corridor by the end of this month.
The fully-elevated corridor will have a façade slightly similar to that of the new Mandi House station, complete with jaali work on the windows.
“In elevated corridors, it becomes extremely difficult to decorate the stations as they are exposed to a lot of dust. So rather than roping in an artist, our architecture department designed ventilating spaces with jaali work famous in Rajasthan,” said a DMRC official.
Once operational, it will carry an additional two lakh passengers. According to official estimates, the present average ridership on the line stands at 1.92 lakh per day.
Once fully operational, the 43.4 km-long line will run from Kashmere Gate to Escorts Mujesar. It will have a total of 32 stations, including five inter-change stations — Kashmere Gate, Mandi House, Central Secretariat, Lajpat Nagar and Kalkaji Mandir.
Apart from the Mujesar terminal station, the upcoming stations are Sarai, NHPC Chowk, Mewla Maharajpur, Sector 28, Badkhal Mor, Old Faridabad, Neelam Chowk Ajronda and Bata Chowk.
The depot for the section, Arjonda Depot, has been constructed near Sector 20 A.
Officials said two more stations, NCB Colony and Ballabgarh, will be added to the line by 2017, thus increasing the length of the line by another 3.2 km.
Next in line to be opened will be the 13.87 km long Jahangirpuri-Faridabad corridor. Civil work in the stretch is complete, along with nearly 90 per cent of the track work. Over 20 per cent of the overhead electrification work remains.
The extension till Badli is 4.3 km and will cover areas like Jahangirpuri, GT Karnal Road, Rohini, Transport Nagar and Badli. The estimated ridership till Badli station is 29,000.
