80% land acquired, DMRC hopes to meet phase III deadline

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is hopeful of completing the process of land acquisition within a few weeks. It has so far acquired over 80% of the land it needs.

Land acquisition is one of the biggest hurdles the DMRC has faced to meet its 2016 deadline for phase 3.

“Barring a few small land pockets, we have acquired about 82% of over 200 hectares of land required for phase 3. Now we would be able to speed up the construction work. Meeting the 2016 deadline does not seem impossible any more,” said an official of the DMRC.

Some of the land pockets which are yet to be acquired are at Trilokpuri, Sarai Kale Khan, Mayur Vihar and Vinod Nagar for the proposed Mukundpur -Shiv Vihar corridor; Sadar Bazar, Shankar Vihar, Nehru Enclave, Greater Kailash and Munirka for the proposed Janakpuri-Kalindi Kunj corridor; and Badli for JahangirpuriBadli corridor.

“We hope to acquire these land pockets soon. Any further delay in the process may cause delay in meeting the deadline,” said Anuj Dayal, chief spokesperson, DMRC. He further said “some of the areas where land acquisition is pending along the phase 3 route have now become crucial”.

Some of these lands are owned by defence authorities, while others are private. A few land pockets are to be acquired from the Delhi Development Authority (DDA).

“Now the construction work would not be hampered much as most of these yet-to-be-acquired lands would be needed to construct entry/exits of station buildings, ramps and viaducts,” an official said.

Work for phase III began in late 2011 and Delhi Metro has been able to complete only 25% of the project till now. It has barely two years left to complete the remaining 75%.

The DMRC also has plans to make some of the corridors operational by the end of 2014. These include Janpath-ITO via Mandi House corridor and Badarpur-Faridabad corridor. Jahangirpuri-Badli corridor is scheduled to be operational in 2015.