Title - Gurgaon Rapid Metro Rail ready for trials

GURGAON: In a move that promises better connectivity in the city soon, the first train set of the Rapid Metro Rail that had arrived in the city on Tuesday from China was placed on the tracks on Thursday. The trial runs are all set to begin in a fortnight. The authorities claimed that the operations would begin in March as scheduled. However the Shankar Chowk station, one among the six on the network, would be initially closed as the work is lagging behind here.The good news is that the Delhi Metro commuters will not have to purchase a separate token to travel by the Rapid Metro. They can use the same token or smart card to do so and the fare, even though yet to be finalized, is likely to be a flat rate for all the six stations."The first train has already arrived and the remaining four will arrive by mid-December. We will begin the trial runs on October 2 and for that we have already started integrating all the components and laying of tracks. We are sure that we will commence our commercial operations as scheduled in March next year, but the only station that will not become operational immediately will be the one at Shankar Chowk, just next to the national highway, as we got that land only a few months ago," said Sanjiv Rai, managing director, Rapid Metro Rail Gurgaon.He added, "the existing Metro users will not face any sort of problem as we along with DMRC have put in place a clearing house system whereby the revenue of the networks will get segregated automatically. The commuters do not have to purchase a separate ticket to use our network."

The authorities claim that the network will be used by at least one lakh commuters in the first year itself. The construction of the second phase of the project will be begin in March, in which the network will be extended towards Sectors 55-56 and Udyog Vihar.