Barakhamba-Indraprastha metro opens on Nov 11

New Delhi, Nov 9: The annual India International Trade Fair could this year witness fewer 'parking blues' and less traffic chaos with the much-awaited Barakhamba-Indraprastha extension of line three of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation all set to begin operations on Saturday.

Stage is all set for opening of the 2.81 km Barakhamba Road-Indraprastha section, comprising the stations of Mandi House, Pragati Maidan and Indraprastha on November 11, three days before the IITF begins on November 14, thus benefitting millions of people from all over Delhi who visit Pragati Maidan every year for the fair and other exhibitions.

''The Metro trains on the section will start operating from 1130 hours on November 11,''a spokesperson of the DMRC told UNI.

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had last month inspected the three stations of the section, an extention of the Barakhamba Road-Dwarka line of the Delhi Metro.

The section was given clearance by the Commissioner of railway safety earlier this week.

''The section has been undergoing trial runs and will be open to the people of Delhi just before the commencement of the India International Trade Fair,'' the spokesperson said.

Delhi Metro has also made special arrangements to facilitate the movement of visitors to the IITF. For example, the existing number of ten ticket operating machines on the Pragati maidan station will be increased to 16 on the days of the fair depending on the number of commuters.

Besides, the station has been equipped with 16 Automatic Fare collection gates and has two entries and exits.

A temporary walkway is also being constructed from behind the Pragati Maidan Metro station so that visitors can directly go up to Hall 12 of Pragati Maidan without having to use the busy Mathura Road. The walkway will be about 300 m long.

The starting of the stretch will also facilitate lakhs of officegoers from East Delhi areas who commute daily to their offices in and around Connaught Place. Further, many of the children have their schools in and around the Mandi house area.

Trains on the Barakhamba road-Indraprastha stretch will operate between 1130 hours and 2200 hours daily unlike the trains on the Barakhamba Road-Dwarka section which will operate between 0600 hours and 2200 hours, the spokesperson said.

The 2.81 km stretch will have three stations - Mandi House, Pragati Maidan and Indraprastha. While the Mandi House station is underground, the other two are elevated. So, while the stretch will be underground from Barakhamba Road to Mandi House, that between Pragati Maidan and I P Estate will be elevated. From Mandi House, the line will emerge from under the ground on a 330-metre- long ramp at Sikandra road.

A unique feature of the section is that for the first time, the stations have been designed entirely by Indian engineers.

Opening of the section has been delayed by nearly a month largely due to the extra time required for the construction of the "extra dozed bridge" to connect the metro network between Pragati Maidan and I P estate.

The bridge is the first of its kind over a railway crossing in India and second in the world made over a ailway crossing for MRTS the first having been already built in Japan.

A considerable amount of time went into construction of the "extra dozed bridge", which pushed back the opening date of the section by more than a month, from September to- October end.

What made construction on the stretch difficult than those on other stretches having railway crossings in between was the fact that the railway crossing at Pragati Maidan was a heavily busy one with all important trains going towards Mumbai and Eastern India passing through it. This made it almost impossible to block the route even for a single day to facilitate construction of the metro bridge.

''About 200 trains, including all important trains going towards Western and Eastern India, pass on the track below the bridge everyday. Because of this, the train movement could not be stopped even for a single day and no pier could be put in between the train tracks. In addition, the bridge has a 302 m radius curvature as required by the alignment. Also, the main span was kept long to allow for future expansion of the Indian railway lines,''the spokesperson said.

About ten engineers of DMRC and over 230 workers were involved in the construction wich was done under trying circumstances like taking care not to disturb overhead electricity lines of the Railways.

The design of the bridge was done by French consultant Systra and independently checked by DMRC. The cost of the bridge, including the design, is about Rs 6.5 crore.

The spokesperson said the physical work on the section had been completed in just 21 months only whereas underground sections usually take 48 months and elevated sections need 36 months at least.

The completion of this stretch also marks the end of the phase I of the Delhi Metro.

From now on, focus will be on phase II of the Metro where on one hand, the Metro line will traverse to New Ashok Nagar in Noida, on while the other, it will go to Gurgaon in Haryana. Work on both the Indraprastha-New Ashok Nagar and the Barakhamba-Gurgaon sections is expected to complete by 2010 before the commencement of the Commonwealth Games.

UNI