1st TBM on Badarpur Corridor starts work

New Delhi, Sep 9 (UNI) The first tunnel boring machine (TBM) on the 20.16 km long Central Secretariat Badarpur C section Metro corridor started work at Jangpura today.

The TBM, which will break through in December this year at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium after creating a 584 m long tunnel, started work at Jangpura in the presence of DMRC's Managing Director, E Sreedharan, DMRC spokesperson Anuj Dayal said.

''While this TBM will operate on the down line, another TBM will be pressed into service on the parallel up line in another 20 days,'' the spokesperson said.

The Central Secretariat - Badarpur corridor will have an underground section of 6.1 km, comprising four stations, which are, Central Secretariat, Khan Market, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and Jangpura.

Another two TBMs will be deployed on the Udyog Bhawan - Khan Market (1776 m) stretch by November. All the tunneling activities on the corridor are expected to be completed by June next year.

The TBMs are manufactured by Herrenknecht of Germany.

For Phase-II of the Delhi Metro, DMRC will use 14 TBMs out of which seven have already started working in Delhi. This is for the first time in any Indian city and perhaps for the first time in any Asian city that so many TBMs will be used simultaneously for building Metro tunnels.

The second phase of Delhi Metro will comprise about 30 kms of underground section of which about 16 kms are to be built using TBMs.

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