How Metro overcame odds in Old City

New Delhi: From boring machines getting stuck during tunnelling work, stalling project timelines to evacuation of people from some of the most densly-populated areas, the road to the Walled City was not easy for the Delhi Metro, which surmounted these daunting challenges with innovation.

The transporter on Wednesday said that the Heritage Line (Central Secretariat-Kashmere Gate corridor of the Violet Line) was one of the shortest corridors (9.37 km) of the Phase-3 network, but it turned out to be the “biggest challenge” in the phase. “During tunnelling work between Delhi Gate and Jama Masjid stations, and at Azadpur station (of Pink Line), tunnel boring machines (TBMs) got stuck due to various constraints. We had to use innovative techniques to overcome them, so as to avoid the delay in the project,” Delhi Metro Rail Corporation’s Managing Director, Mangu Singh, said.

He was interacting with reporters at the launch of ‘Delhi Metro: Phase-3 Challenges’, a compilation of the engineering feats achieved and the challenges encountered during the construction of the Heritage Line and two other major corridors -- Janakapuri West-Botanical Garden (Magenta Line) and Majlis Park-Shiv Vihar (Pink Line).

The Kalkaji Mandir-Botanical Garden stretch of the Magenta Line was inaugurated last December, while the Majlis Park-Durgabai Deshmukh South Campus section of the Pink Line was opened last month, taking the total operational span of the rapid transit network to 252 km.