Delhi Metro Phase III hit by delay in land acquisition

It seems that the Janakpuri to Botanical Garden metro line is going to miss its deadline of 2016 as the land acquisition is not in place yet at several points.

Till now, only around 15 percent of the construction work has been done in this line, said some of the Delhi Metro officials. Work is being carried in a fast pace on the Mukundpur-Shiv Vihar metro corridor and construction work of stations in this line is also going on.

The construction work of metro corridor is facing hindrances at many points in the 36 km alignment. Among all those points, a 3 km stretch between the Palam and the domestic airport stations is the most important obstruction. The stretch, belonging to the army, starts immediately after the Dwarka flyover and is upto the Dwarka underpass near the domestic airport. It is the only elevated part in the underground section from Janakpuri (west) to the proposed Kalkaji station. According to sources, the Delhi Metro rail Corporation (DMRC) has been trying to acquire this stretch of land for the past two years and it is likely to be handed over by the army shortly.

If the DMRC fails to acquire this land in the next few months, it will be very difficult to complete the project within the 2016 deadline. An official said that the land is an integral part of the alignment where Sadar Bazar station is located.

Apart from this, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has agreed to handover a chunk of land it owned near Dabri Mor while another piece of land near Kalindi Kunj has to be cleared by the authority. The Kalindi Kunj land is important as Metro will build its lone depot for the line in this part. The Chirag Dilli nursery owned by DDA, which is also a site for a station on this line, has already been given to the DMRC by the civic authority.

The DMRC has proved its efficiency standards by finishing its works on time in all the earlier works, and even prior deadline in some cases. But in the case of Janakpuri to Botanical Garden corridor, it would possibly cross the given 2016 deadline to complete the work.

The work on the third phase of Metro expansion, which includes expansion of about 140 km of Metro network in Delhi-NCR, was started in November 2011. But till date, in the first 20 months, only 15 percent of the total work has been done and there are 42 months left for the rest 85 percent work, which clearly shows that it is not likely to happen.

Once the Metro Phase III work is completed, almost 70 percent of the nation’s capital will be covered by the Metro network. It is estimated that the network would benefit around 39 lakh commuters on a daily basis. However, a DMRC spokesperson said that there was no major delay has happened so far in the completion of the phase III project work.

As per the DMRC report, in the phase III, many Metro stations have to be constructed in areas such as Kalindi Kunj, Jamia Nagar and Jaffarabad, and the land has to be acquired from UP irrigation department. Apart from this, nearly 32 hectares of land has to be acquired from the DDA under the expansion plan. Senior officials revealed that the DMRC is in negotiations with concerned authorities to sort out these issues.

The phase III Metro will connect prime areas of Delhi-NCR like- outer ring road, the arterial ring road, domestic airport, Faridabad, Bawana, Jamia Nagar, among others. Further, it also adds heritage line with the extension of the HUDA City Centre to Central Secretariat line to the Red Fort.