New Delhi: From this weekend, commuters can hope to reach Gurgaon
from the city's Connaught Place in less than an hour as the Central
Secretariat-Qutub Minar corridor is likely to be opened by that time.
The inauguration of the 12.53 km line will take place
after the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety R K Kardam
inspects the entire corridor tomorrow and give his
mandatory safety clearance. "The inspection date has been fixed
for August 30 and 31," Kardam told PTI.
Once the Central Secretariat-Qutub Minar corridor is
opened and integrated with the existing 14.47 km Qutub
Minar-HUDA City Centre line, it would drastically reduce
travel time between Delhi and its satellite city of Gurgaon.
The opening of the line will also allow Delhiites to
enjoy a comfort ride from North Delhi to South Delhi and
vice-versa as the Central Secretariat-HUDA City Centre
(Gurgaon) line will be integrated to the existing Central
Secretariat-Jehangirpuri corridor. The entire 42 km from
Jehangirpuri to Gurgaon will be covered in less than 90 minutes.
Sources said the line will be opened to the public in
two-three days after the Delhi Metro gets the green signal
from the CMRS.
The line was scheduled to open by the end of August. This
will be the second line where the DMRC will miss its
originally-set deadline. Earlier, the Metro had missed the
deadline on the Yamuna Bank-Noida line.
DMRC plans to run 60 trains on the entire stretch at a
frequency of 3 minutes.
The Central Secretariat-HUDA City Centre line, built at a
total cost of Rs 3,720 crore, is expected to add over 3.4 lakh
people to the Metro system by 2011.