NCR’s ₹25,000 cr 2nd rapid rail corridor awaits govt approval
NEW DELHI: The National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC), which is developing the Delhi-Meerut rapid rail transport service (RRTS), is awaiting approval from the Centre for the second corridor of the ambitious project. The multimodal project, which is estimated to cost around ₹25,000 crore, is expected to be partially operational next year.
The company submitted the detailed project report (DPR) to the ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA) for the 107-km corridor from Delhi to SNB (Shahjahanpur–Neemrana– Behrod) in January 2019, NCRTC managing director Vinay Kumar Singh said in an interview to Mint. NRCTC is a joint venture between the Centre and the governments of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan.
“The second project...we had submitted the DPR in January 2019 to MoHUA. They have not
yet sanctioned it. The moment they sanction, we will start work. We have done all the utility diversion plans, tree cutting permissions are there and road widening has been done,” he said.
The 107-km long Delhi- SNB route is part of the longer Delhi to Alwar route, which would extend to 164 km with an anticipated daily ridership of 1.1 million people. The initial phase of 107 km will connect the industrial cities of Gurugram, Dharuhera, and Rewari in Haryana and also connect the Indira Gandhi International Airport in the national capital on its route from Sarai Kale Khan in Delhi to SNB.
The section from Sarai Kale Khan to the airport can be completed by 2025 if the approval is given now, Singh said. The second corridor is among the three prioritized corridors in Phase-1 which include the ongoing Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut route and the proposed Delhi-Panipat route. The DPR for the DelhiPanipat route is yet to be prepared.
In the first week of December, NRCTC is scheduled to start trials on the 17 km section from Sahibabad to Duhai of the 82.15 km Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS Corridor for three months. The section is expected to be operational from March 2023 and the whole of Delhi-Meerut corridor is expected to be operational by 2025. For the first corridor, NCRTC has received multilateral funding of about $1 billion from the Asian Development Bank, $500 million from New Development Bank, and $500 million from Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.