GURUGRAM: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone for Gurugram Metro in a virtual programme on Feb 16 from Rewari, where he will also attend the ground-breaking ceremony of AIIMS Rewari. The event for the metro foundation-laying ceremony will be organised in Sector 44. The much-anticipated inauguration of Dwarka Expressway, however, will not be conducted during the PM’s visit, according to officials. The Dwarka Expressway is expected to be inaugurated in the end of Feb or the beginning of March.
The Union Cabinet approved the project — which proposes to provide metro connectivity from Huda City Centre to Cyber City with a spur to Dwarka Expressway — in June 2023. Since then, there has been no further development on the project, and groundwork hasn’t started yet.
The elevated metro corridor will be 28.5km long with 27 stations. The spur from Basai village will link the corridor to the metro depot. While the designated speed of the metro trains is 80 kmph, they will operate at an average speed of 34kmph.
The Haryana government has decided to form a corporation on the lines of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (GMRC) for the execution of the project, but a notification for the formation of the corporation has not been issued so far. “The project will gain pace with the Feb 16 event,” said a senior government officer.
Deputy commissioner of Gurgaon Nishant Yadav said the city metro is the only project from Gurgaon which will be part of the PM’s event. “Large numbers of labharthis are expected to go from Gurgaon to Rewari to participate in the PM event. We are making arrangements for their transportation,” he said.
Clarifying that Dwarka Expressway will not be among the projects to be inaugurated by the PM, the DC added, “It will be inaugurated in a separate event at the end of Feb or beginning of next month.”
The metro project, estimated to cost Rs 5,452.7 crore, will be financed by the Union govt, state govt, local bodies and through loans. The Centre will provide Rs 896 crore, state Rs 1,432 crore and local bodies (GMDA and MCG) Rs 300 crore. The remaining Rs 2688.6 crore will be obtained through loans from European Investment Bank and World Bank. The initial ridership of the route is expected to be around 5 lakh which will increase to 7.3 lakh by 2031.
At present, the city has only 17km of metro corridors — the 5.3km stretch of Delhi Metro’s Yellow Line and the 11.7km Rapid Metro. No expansion of the metro service has taken place since 2017.
