Key NCR high-speed rail project gets push

New Delhi: The much awaited high speed Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut Rapid Rail Transit Corridor (RRTS) corridor achieved a major landmark on Tuesday with the approval from National Capital Region Transport Corporation Board. The 92-km project will enable travel at the 160 km per hour, slashing the travel time to 60 minutes.

The project, which was conceived over ten years ago, will have a capital investment of Rs 21,902 crore. Sources said that the NCRTC board, chaired by Rajiv Gauba, secretary (urban development), approved the RRTS corridor conceived more than ten years ago. This corridor originates from Sarai Kale Khan terminus station and passes through dense development of Delhi, Ghaziabad and Meerut regions, terminating at Modipuram.

Of the 92.05-km-long corridor, 60.354 km is elevated, 30.245-km is underground and 1.451-km will be at grade for connections to two depots at Duhai and Modipuram.

In Delhi and Meerut area, the RRTS will be underground, including crossing of Yamuna River. The remaining section will be on elevated viaduct running on the median of Delhi-Meerut Highway. There will be a total of 17 stations, including 11 elevated and 6 underground stations.

The Delhi Meerut corridor is expected to carry about 7.91 lakh passengers in 2024, 9.20 lakh in 2031 and 11.40 lakh passengers in 2041. The Peak Hour Peak Day Traffic (PHPDT) is estimated to be 18,224 in 2024, 22,215 in 2031 and 26,462 in 2041.

This corridor will be designed for a maximum speed of 180 km per hour with operating speed of 160 kmph. Coaches will have airline type 2 x 2 seats with one business class coach in each train. Each train will have 12 coaches.  On completion of this corridor, travel time between Delhi and Meerut will come down to 48 minutes by Express Trains and 60 minutes by normal trains.

“The Board approved inter-operability of RRTS among the three corridors viz., Delhi-Meerut, Delhi-Panipat and Delhi-Alwar to enable seamless travel to these four destinations besides reduction of costs through economies of scale in procurement of equipment and coaches etc. The Board also decided in favour of ensuring multi-modal integration at Sarai Kale Khan, AnandVihar, ISBT (Kashmiri Gate) and Aero City in Delhi to enable easy transition from one mode of transit to the other. This helps passengers in shifting from bus travel to train, metro or air travel,” the source said.

The NCRTC Board has also decided to take up with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways  realignment of Delhi-Sonepat-Panipat and Delhi-Rewari-Alwar RRTC corridors to run them along  NH-1 and NH-8 respectively. This has been done keeping in view that the earlier alignments were away from the highly inhabited areas besides passing through agricultural lands and private lands involving land acquisition costs, demolition and rehabilitation costs, cutting of large number of trees, shifting of utilities etc.