New Delhi, Oct 30 (PTI) The Shiv Vihar-Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake section of the Pink Line is all set to be opened to public on Wednesday, following which the Delhi Metro will be running 4,749 trips a day, the "highest ever" so far, officials said.
With the opening of this corridor, the Delhi Metro will also join the league of top metro networks around the world which have an operational length of over 300 km, like those in London, Beijing, Shanghai and New York.
The 17.86 km-long section is slated to be formally flagged off for passenger operations by Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia Wednesday morning and it will be opened for passengers by afternoon.
"With the commencement of services on Shiv Vihar--Trilokpuri section from Wednesday, the DMRC will be running 4,749 trips in a day, the highest ever so far," a DMRC spokesperson said Tuesday.
Currently, the Delhi Metro operates over 4,000 trips per day, he said.
In view of authorities taking action Tuesday after pollution level nosedived to severe', the first time this season, he said, "The DMRC will also work on the operationally best possible plan to help ease the pollution situation in the city."
The DPCC has directed the transport department and traffic police to intensify checking of polluting vehicles and control travel congestion in Delhi and other NCR districts during November 1-10.
Following the direction from the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA), the DPCC notified Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) an other agencies to to enforce these measures.
The all-elevated Shiv Vihar-Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake section in east Delhi consists of 15 stations, three of which are interchange facilities.
Once this segment of the Pink Line is inaugurated, the Delhi Metro network will expand to nearly 314 km with 229 stations.
The stations are Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake, East Vinod Nagar-Mayur Vihar-II , Mandawali-West Vinod Nagar, IP Extension, Anand Vihar ISBT, Karkardooma, Karkardooma Court, Krishna Nagar, East Azad Nagar, Welcome, Jaffrabad, Maujpur-Babarpur, Gokulpuri, Johri Enclave and Shiv Vihar.
The main highlight of this section will be the presence of three interchange stations -- Anand Vihar (with Blue Line), Karkardooma (with Blue Line) and Welcome (with Red Line).
However, due to infrastructure constraints, trains on the Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake-IP Extension section on this corridor will ply on a single route with a frequency of a little 15 minutes and 36 seconds, officials said Monday.
A bottleneck near Triloklouri station has arisen due to multiple issues, including land acquisition, resulting in a portion of metro segment, about few kilometres remaining incomplete, rendering the Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake station, a terminus.
Also, only every third train will go to Trilokpuri station from IP Extension due to the single line operation on down line due to non-availability of cross-over facility at Trilokpuri, Executive Director, Corporate Communications at DMRC, Anuj Dayal said.
The train services between IP Extension and Shiv Vihar section will be run as per normal practice on both the lines at a peak hour frequency of 5 minutes and 12 seconds, officials said.
"However, passengers heading towards Trilokpuri or Shiv Vihar will be required to change the trains at the platform level itself at Maujpur-Babarpur station.
"This interchange is necessitated since Maujpur-Babarpur is designed to meet Phase-IV requirement as an interchange station with four platforms," Dayal said.
The train services between IP Extension and Shiv Vihar section will be run as per normal practice on both the lines at a peak hour frequency of 5 minutes and 12 seconds, officials said.
In construction of this section, the Delhi Metro has achieved a rare feat in metro construction by crossing over its existing operational line (Blue Line) at the Karkardooma Metro Station (old one) at a record height of 21 m above the ground, making it the second highest structure in the network.
The highest point in the metro lies in Dhaula Kuan area, between Mayapuri and South Campus metro stations of the Pink Line, at a height of 23.6 m as high as a seven-storey building.
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