Title - Gurgaon Rapid Metro Phase II, III bid made, operations start next March

Gurgaon: With the first phase of the Rapid Metro set to be operational by March 2013, IL&FS Rail has bid for the second and third phase of the Metro which will be constructed on the Golf Course Road and Udyog Vihar lines. Sanjiv Rai, MD and CEO of IL&FS Rail Limited (IRL), said on Friday, “We were the only bidders for these two projects. We submitted our bid on April 26. There was an extension of one month.”The company has also submitted a qualification bid for Chennai Monorail and is looking at other Metro opportunities in India and abroad.“We are also conducting a detailed study of the proposed Delhi Monorail,” said Rai.Officials pointed out that the second phase will have a north extension in Udyog Vihar and will have a south extension along Golf Course Road.Each extension of the Metro will be approximately seven kilometres long.The first and second phases will cover approximately 20 km of both new and old Gurgaon.The total project cost for the second phase will be approximately Rs 4,000 crore.The first phase of the Rapid Metro will cost Rs 1,088 crore, Rai said.He said that its commercial operations are scheduled to start by March 2013. The civil construction work is in full swing, tracks are being laid and station buildings are under construction.The trains are in final assembly at the factory and should arrive by July.“We should start trial runs in October as the Metro needs to be checked and tested by the Commission of Railway Safety. It should be operational by March next year,” Rai said.Officials said that an additional substation is under construction for reliable power supply.Two dedicated power sources will provide uninterrupted supply. One of these will be in Sector 28 behind Bristol Hotel and the other will be at Q Block.The key challenge, said officials, will be minimising traffic disruption in congested urban environments.They said that the work is to be completed in two-and-a-half years.The first phase is 5.1 kilometres long with six stations connecting Sikanderpur station of Delhi Metro to NH-8 and Cyber City in Gurgaon. Initially five trains, each with 3 cars, will run at 4 minutes headway and each train can carry 800 passengers.