Work On 14-Km-Long Delhi Section Of Rapid Rail To Meerut On Track To Meet 2025 Deadline

Work on the 14-km-long Delhi section of the Delhi-Meerut RapidX Regional Rail Transit System (RRTS) is on track to meet the deadline for the overall project.

The RRTS is a new, rail-based, dedicated, high capacity, comfortable commuter service. The country's first RRTS which is coming up in Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) has been named as RAPIDX. The train will cover a distance of 82 km between Delhi and Meerut in 55 minutes instead of three hours.

While at least 14 km of the 82 km corridor is in Delhi, the remaining 68km lies in Uttar Pradesh.

The Delhi section which begins at Sarai Kale Khan comprises around nine kilometers of elevated track and an additional nine kilometers of underground track. This section includes four stations: Jungpura, Sarai Kale Khan, New Ashok Nagar, and Anand Vihar.

Status

At least 70 per cent civil work has been completed on the Delhi stretch. This includes 80 per cent work of the pillars and the 4.5-km-long viaduct for the elevated section.

Further, in June, the tunnelling in the Delhi section of the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor was also completed.

Tunnel construction of the underground section in Delhi commenced in February 2022, when tunnel boring machine (TBM) Sudarshan 4.1 started tunnelling from Anand Vihar towards New Ashok Nagar.

Sudarshan 4.2 was launched soon after in April 2022 for tunnelling its parallel tunnel. These parallel tunnels are the longest tunnel in Delhi made by any TBM and are about 3 km each.

The TBN Sudarshan 4.1 made the breakthrough from the tunnel retrieval shaft constructed at Khichdipur, Delhi in just over a year in April 2023.

Sudarshan 4.2 has also completed tunnelling for its parallel tunnel and made a breakthrough recently. This marked the completion of the tunnelling in the underground section of the corridor in the National Capital.

Apart from these, two more Sudarshan, 4.3 and 4.4 were also launched from Anand Vihar for tunnelling 2-km-long parallel tunnels towards Sahibabad RAPIDX station for the Delhi-Ghaziabad section in June and October 2022, respectively.

One of these, Sudarshan 4.3 made a breakthrough from the retrieval shaft constructed near Vaishali Metro station in May 2023. The other TBM, Sudarshan 4.4 has also completed about 75 per cent of the tunnelling and will soon make a breakthrough.

Commissioning By 2025

The National Capital Region Transport Corporations (NCRTC) which is implementing the project is targeting to open the full corridor from Sarai Kale Khan to Meerut by June 2025.

Before that, it will operationalise a 17-km-long priority section between Sahibabad and Duhai Depot shortly.

The 17-km priority corridor between Sahibabad and Duhai Depot has five stations — Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, Guldhar, Duhai and Duhai Depot.

The Commissioner for Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) last week approved the start of commercial operation of RAPIDX service on the Priority Section.