New Delhi:
More hospitals in the capital will be linked by Delhi Metro's Phase III extension, benefiting tens of thousands of people.
The ongoing construction of the 103.5-km route, to be completed by 2016, will provide metro connectivity to five major hospitals.
These are Delhi government's Lok Nayak Hospital, the nearby Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC), Holy Family Hospital, Fortis Escort Heart Institute and Mata Channan Devi Hospital.
The Delhi Gate station on the Central Secretariat-Kashmeri Gate corridor will be near the Lok Nayak Hospital, which caters to almost 4,000 outpatients daily. Maulana Azad Medical College is also close by.
"It will be a boon for the thousands who visit the Lok Nayak hospital if there is Metro connectivity," Sandhya Pillai, a staff nurse, told IANS.
South Delhi's Jamia Nagar station on the Janakpuri West-Kalindi Kunj corridor will connect the Holy Family Hospital and Fortis Escort Heart Institute. Ishwar Nagar station will also be close by.
The Mata Channan Devi hospital in West Delhi will fall near C2B station on the Janakpuri West-Kalindi Kunj corridor.
Currently, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) metro station, providing connectivity to AIIMS and Safdarjung Hospital, gets 25,000 footfalls a day, an official said.
Apart from the five hospitals in Phase III, some hospitals already on the metro network will have additional connectivity.
The Moolchand Hospital in South Delhi, near the Lajpat Nagar station on the Central Secretariat-Badarpur line, will be connected through the under construction Mukundpur-Yamuna Vihar corridor as well.
The Dharamshila Cancer Hospital in East Delhi is near the New Ashok Nagar station on the Dwarka-Noida City Centre corridor.
After Phase III's completion, it will have added connectivity as the Trilokpuri station on the Mukundpur-Yamuna Vihar station will come up in the vicinity.
"The metro stations near the hospitals will be specially designed for patient convenience, with bigger lifts to facilitate wheelchairs," added the official.
Some others like Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital in West Delhi, Army Hospital in Delhi Cantonment and Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital in East Delhi will also be linked to metro stations.
Metro stretches in this phase are Mukundpur to Yamuna Vihar, Janakpuri West to Kalindi Kunj, Central Secretariat to Kashmeri Gate and Jahangirpuri to Badli.
The Mukundpur corridor will be the longest, covering 56 km with 35 stations. The Janakpuri West-Munirka-Kalindi Kunj corridor will cover 34 km and will have 22 stations.
As of now Delhi Metro makes over 2,400 trips a day, covering about 70,000 km and carrying around 1.8 million passengers on working days.