METRO PHASE IV ANNOUNCEMENT SOON
NEW DELHI: As the tug of war between the Delhi government and the Centre sees no definite end, six lines of the fourth phase of Delhi Metro are two years behind schedule.
However, this week, the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government decided to give its nod to all the six corridors, work for which will begin after the third phase Delhi Metro projects are over by the end of the year.
Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has already announced that the Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake–shiv Vihar section of Pink Line will be inaugurated on October 31. DMRC officials further claimed that by the end of December, they will finish work for phase III and start operations.
It is pertinent to mentioned that a detailed project report for Metro’s phase IV was tabled in 2012 under the Sheila Dikshit government in Delhi.
DMRC is yet to receive a formal approval for phase IV from the AAP government, which has not been cleared since 2015.
It is expected that both the Centre and Delhi government would formally announce phase IV, after Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Deputy Chief Minster Manish Sisodia flag off the Pink Line section on October 31.
The Delhi government had earlier said that of the six corridors
in phase IV, three were financially unviable, namely the Rithala–narela (21.73 km), Tughlaqabad–aerocity (12.58 km) and Inderlok–indraprastha (12.58 km) corridors.
The other three, i.e. Janakpuri West–rk Ashram Marg (28.92 km), Mukundpur–mauj Nagar (12.54 km) and Lajpat Nagar–saket G-block (7.96 km) were found to be viable.
Work on the much-delayed phase IV project is expected to finally start by mid-2019.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government is likely to allocate Rs 1,000 crore in the revised estimates of the current financial year for phase IV.
Preparations for allocating the funds have already begun, a government source said.
The phase IV project is worth Rs 55,208 crore, of which the Delhi government’s share is around Rs 12,500 crore. The total length of all corridors will be around 104 km.
Construction for phase IV was expected to start in 2016 and get completed by 2021.
However, one of the biggest obstacle for DMRC this time is that the contractors engaged in the phase III project have already demobilised their men and machinery.
Currently, only work related to finishing is taking place in the phase III corridors which are yet to open. Once it is approved, the Corporation will have to remobilise men and machinery for phase IV project, which would increase the expenditure.