By Nivedita Mukherjee
With financing issues possessing been resolved right after loan approval from multilateral institutions in current months, India’s urban transport landscape is set for a big transformation when the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS Corridor, India’s 1st regional fast transit method (RRTS), becomes operational in 2023, ushering seamless connectivity in the National Capital Region (NCR). The corridor would connect regional nodes in NCR and shorten the Delhi-Meerut transit to significantly less than 60 minutes from the 3-4 hours taken by road, in addition to minimizing congestion and pollution.
Work is now in complete swing on a a lot more than 50-km stretch– from Sahibabad to Shatabdi Nagar (Meerut), such as the building of Ghaziabad, Sahibabad, Guldhar and Duhai stations – of the project. While a
17-km priority section involving Sahibabad and Duhai is scheduled to commence operations in 2023, the complete corridor would be opened to the public by 2025. Says Vinay Kumar Singh, MD, National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC), “NCR is one of the fastest-growing regions in the world and a high-speed, high-frequency regional mobility solution is the need of the hour.”
With a project price of Rs 30,274 crore, the 82-km-lengthy corridor is one particular of the 3 higher priority corridors to be constructed by the NCRTC, carrying one hundred% India-created, aerodynamic trains with a style speed of 180 kmph. The Meerut RRTS is estimated to have a everyday ridership of a lot more than 7,40,000 passengers by 2024 and 1.1 million passengers by 2041.
The project received a shot in the arm in November when the Centre signed a loan agreement worth $500 million with the New Development Bank (NDB) for the project. In August, the Asian Development Bank had authorized a $1-bn loan for the objective. The ADB signed an agreement with the Centre for the loan’s 1st tranche of `500 mn in September. The agreement on co-financing the project also contains the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which committed $500 mn for the corridor on March 24.
The multilateral funds would go into sophisticated technologies such as ETCS Level-2 signalling systems, ballastless tracks and track fastening systems, which are to be applied in India for the 1st time. The proceeds of the ADB loan would be applied to finance civil performs, tracks, station buildings, multi-modal hubs, and so on. The NDB loan comes as a big increase to the Centre’s vision of an Atmanirbhar Bharat as it would help improvement of indigenous capacity and be utilised to finance rolling stock, signalling method, operational structures, train handle, telecommunication method and other miscellaneous performs on the corridor.
The RRTS rolling stock is becoming manufactured by Bombardier at Savli in Gujarat below the ‘Make-in-India’ initiative, utilizing 83% nearby content. The NCRTC would procure 30 train sets of 6 vehicles every single to operate services on the corridor.
Besides the Delhi-Meerut corridor, the NCRTC would be developing the Delhi-Gurugram-SNB-Alwar and Delhi-Panipat RRTS corridors below Phase-1 of the transport program that aims to strengthen regional connectivity. Pre-building activities are in complete swing for the Delhi-Gurugram-SNB corridor and its DPR is below active consideration of the Centre. The DPR of the Delhi-Panipat corridor is also below active consideration of the respective state governments. According to the program, all 3 Phase-I RRTS corridors would converge at Sarai Kale Khan in Delhi and be inter-operable. The RRTS stations would be integrated with nearby metro and railway stations, inter-state bus terminals and airport for seamless connectivity.