High speed rail to soon link Meerut, Alwar with IGI

New Delhi: People from Meerut, Panipat and Alwar will soon be able to reach Delhi airport in less then 90 minutes. Rail-based high-speed commuter service, on the lines of Crossrail of London and RER of Paris, is being developed to connect regional nodes of NCR with the Aerocity at IGI Airport.

The Centre government, along with the governments of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan, are part of the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC), which is the executing agency for the two other links — the Delhi-Panipat and the Delhi-Alwar corridors. It will have Sarai Kale Khan as their interoperable hub.

An interoperable hub will provide facility to passengers to travel hassle free and a passenger can commute from one state to another without changing any train.

All three corridors will be interconnected. Of the three corridors, work on the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut (DGM) will start by this year itself. “DGM is much ahead. The UP government has already approved the corridor,” said a NCRTC spokesperson.

While metro rail projects generally serve the need of intra-city movement and operate within metropolitan cities like Delhi, Chennai or Kochi, etc; RRTS will connect suburban and urban centres in NCR, and will run right from one city center to another, thus providing a seamless transit network to the entire region.

This RRTS corridor will originate from Sarai Kale Khan integrated terminus station in Delhi and will end at Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. Enroute, it will cross the Yamuna and Hindon rivers, railway tracks and also the Eastern Peripheral Expressway. Passing through industrialised areas of Haryana and Rajasthan, this smart line will benefit the entire region between Gurgaon to Alwar, while increasing the productivity of a large number of commuters travelling from Delhi and Gurgaon to regions in Manesar and Neemrana.

The DPR of this corridor is in advance stages of finalisation. This line will also connect Munirka, Aerocity and move via Gurgaon, Sotanala and Rewari to reach Alwar in Rajasthan. This corridor will be constructed in three phases The first phase will be from Sarai Kale Khan to SNB (Shahjahan -  Neemrana - Behror), which will be a 126 km long stretch. Out of which 81.86 km area falls under Haryana and the estimated cost for this phase is likely to be around 25,000 crore.