New Delhi: The Najafgarh-Dhansa Bus Stand extension of the Delhi Metro’s Grey Line and a small segment of the Pink Line corridor at Trilokpuri are set to be inaugurated on August 6, officials said on Sunday (August 1, 2021).
Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will open the two sections via video conferencing, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) said.
While the inauguration function will be held online in the morning on August 6, passenger services will commence on the same day at 3 PM on both sections, officials said.
The nearly one-kilometer-long (891 m) Najafgarh-Dhansa Bus Stand section will take the metro further into the interior areas of Najafgarh.
The opening of the Trilokpuri section, about 289 m, between the Mayur Vihar Pocket 1 and Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake stations, will fully link the entire 59 km-long Pink Line and will connect important landmarks of the city, such as the Anand Vihar Railway station, Anand Vihar ISBT, Nizamuddin Railway station, markets in South Extension, INA and Lajpat Nagar, officials said.
The Majlis Park-Shiv Vihar corridor or the Pink Line spans 38 stations.
However, a small portion in east Delhi’s Trilokpuri area had proved to be a bottleneck for the DMRC authorities for a long time due to which the line had remained disjointed for some distance there.
With the opening of these sections, the Delhi Metro network span will become 390 km with 286 stations.
The Najafgarh’s Dhansa Bus Stand corridor had recently received mandatory approval from the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS).
This extension of the over 4.2-km Grey Line (Dwarka-Najafgarh corridor) will immensely benefit the residents of the interior areas around Najafgarh, which is steeped in history.
The Dwarka-Najafgarh corridor was opened in October 2019, which had connected the urban village area of Najafgarh to the rapid transit network for the first time.
The upcoming Dhansa Bus Stand station has been adorned with attractive artworks and photographs, which display the rich heritage, culture, flora and fauna of this suburban locality of the national capital.
Also, the DMRC has built its first-ever underground integrated parking facility at this station on the Grey Line that will allow commuters to park their vehicles and move to the concourse area directly.
The station has been designed as a four-level underground structure where the platforms will be at the bottom (at an approximate depth of 18 m), followed by the concourse and then an entire floor for parking above it with the roof level at the top (or the ground level), the DMRC said.
The much-delayed completion of the Pink Line will also immensely benefit residents of east Delhi or people travelling to that region, as the gap at Trilokpuri was causing the corridor to be operated in two separate segments.
The gap in the line was expected to be plugged by September 2020, but it had got delayed due to repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, sources had said in early October.
Pink Line was opened in multiple phases in 2018. And, all stations on the line have been opened.
The bottleneck near Triloklouri station had arisen due to multiple issues, including land acquisition, resulting in a portion of the metro segment, then about a few kilometres remaining incomplete, rendering the Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake station a terminus.
After its operationalisation on August 6, this section will connect the two ends of the Pink Line and provide seamless connectivity to a long range of localities in the National Capital Region.
Important transport hubs such as Nizamuddin Railway Station, Sarai Kale Khan ISBT, Anand Vihar Railway Station, Anand Vihar ISBT, Delhi Cantt. Railway Station, and prominent markets like Dilli Haat – INA, Sarojini Nagar and Lajpat Nagar will get direct connectivity through this corridor.
This corridor will further be extended from Majlis Park to Maujpur in Phase-IV, making it the longest single metro corridor in India at approximately 70 km. After completion of the Phase-IV, the Pink Line will also become the only Ring Corridor of Metro in the country.
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