Inspired by Delhi success, cities queue up to board Metro

NEW DELHI: The capital’s tryst with the Metro, a first for the country, is a model which is being emulated to build Metro systems in other cities now.
Over the past few years, the successful Delhi Metro model has caught the fancy of many and over 20 cities including Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad have already approached Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for consultancy.
The proposed lines include east-west and north-south corridors for Bangalore spanning across 33km and a 33.7-km high-speed link to the airport, Phase I of Hyderabad Metro which has multiple lines across 50km and a 40.5-km high-speed link to the airport, an east-west corridor in Kolkata across 19km, four lines of Mumbai Metro across 95km, a 43.55-km line in Ahmedabad, a 25.25-km Metro link in Kochi, a 29-km line in Ludhiana, two corridors spanning across 35.5km in Pune, a 30-km network consisting of two lines in Jaipur, two lines in Lucknow ac-
ross 34.2km, an 18.3km section in Navi Mumbai and a 900-km high-speed rail link in Kochi.
There are extensions proposed for Delhi Metro as well to other states. There is a 5.5km link proposed from Shahdara to Ghaziabad, a 13.9km extension from Badarpur to Faridabad, an 11.2km extension from Mundka to Bahadurgarh, a 9.41-km link from Dwarka to Najafgarh and a Light Rail Transit (LRT) link from Noida City Centre to Greater Noida.
The corporation has started preparing Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) of the lines and some of them have already been submitted to the respective state governments for further approvals. DMRC, in most of the cases, is the primary consultant for the studies.
The corporation has proposed where the Metro lines should come up, whether the corridors should be elevated or underground, the location of Metro stations, estimated costs, etc. The construction of the new links, however, may or may not be taken up by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation.