Metro's Pink line on track.

Work on Delhi’s longest Metro corridor - the Pink Line - is in full swing with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) completing over 80 per cent of its civil work. The Majlis Park-Shiv Vihar line, which is slated to come up under the Phase-III network, will form a loop connecting all six corridors of the Delhi Metro. The corridor is slated to be commissioned by December this year and will have as many as 10 inter-change stations - the highest on any line so far.

Recently, the DMRC had launched a special steel span of 60 metres weighing 360 metric tonnes at Punjabi Bagh on the line that will touch almost the entire city. Anuj Dayal, Executive Director (Corporate Communications), DMRC said, “Due to the existing underpass on the Rohtak road, erecting a pier there was not possible. Therefore, to cross the main road, it was decided to build a special span of 60 metres that would connect the viaduct to the proposed Punjabi Bagh station. Gauging the progress, we can conclude that the project is on time.”

The 58.596-kilometre line will go beneath the operational Inderlok-Mundka elevated line (Line 5). “Vertical clearance for the road traffic underneath was a major constraint. This was solved by providing a steel truss instead of the conventional RCC-box segmental construction. This steel truss was first assembled and erected on the trestles and then pushed to its final position using high-capacity rollers and hydraulicjacks,” Mr. Dayal added.

The DMRC claims that traffic was not disturbed in the process, which is why this method was opted for. The process of assembling and launching the span started in September 2015 and was completed a few days back. The operation was carried out only during the night, said Metro officials. This is the second such truss pushing by the DMRC as part of Phase III after the first was completed at Rajouri Garden.

The Majlis Park-Shiv Vihar line will have 38 stations, of which 26 will be elevated. Also, the corridor is expected to reduce the distance between existing stations by nearly 15 kilometres and will also boast seamless connectivity outside the stations.

For example, Rajouri Garden station on the Pink line will be connected to Dwarka Sector 21 on the Blue line through a foot-over bridge that will have 10 travelators covering a distance of 310 metres. The station will directly connect West with South Delhi. At present, commuters have to travel to Rajiv Chowk to take the Yellow line to reach places like South Extension, Sarojini Nagar.

THE HINDU