Title - Gurgaon-Dwarka Metro link gets major boost

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is preparing a detailed project report for the IFFCO Chowk-Dwarka border Metro extension project.

The DMRC’s intervention is supposed to break the logjam over this ambitious project — it is expected to address the commutation issues of thousands of residents of Gurgaon and its adjoining areas — which has been caught in red tape for quite some time now.

It is learnt that while the Haryana government is entrusted with constructing this project, the Delhi government will build the remaining portion to link the line with Dwarka Sector 21 Metro station.

Despite several meetings between officials of both the governments and the DMRC in the past two years, a consensus could not be reached on how the Metro line from Dwarka Sector 21 was to be extended to Gurgaon.

Referring to its latest meeting, a senior DMRC official told, “Both the governments will pay money to each other for the trains entering their respective domains.”

But the official said that this was not the final detailed project report (DPR).

“This is only an option the DMRC is preparing for both the governments. The two governments would examine the pros and cons of the DPR,” said the official, adding that the DMRC will submit the DPR within a month.

The DMRC, in the first DPR it submitted to the Haryana government in February 2012, had made a build-operate-transfer (BOT) provision to invite Reliance Infrastructure to construct the 12-km Metro extension line between Dwarka Sector 21 and Iffco Chowk in Gurgaon.

“But the Airport Expressway Line that was being operated by Reliance got scrapped and the DMRC had to look for a fresh DPR,” said the official.