Commuters from west Delhi will soon get a direct mass transit ride to south Delhi’s IIT campus, Munirka and Vasant Vihar once the Delhi Metro’s Magenta Line (Janakpuri West-Botanical Garden) connecting Noida with west Delhi becomes fully operational March end.
The Janakpuri West Metro station on the Dwarka-Noida Metro corridor (Line 3) has been converted into an interchange station to provide additional connectivity to areas in south Delhi and Noida.
While both the corridors are parallel, travelling on new corridor will take less time as there are only 24 stations between Janakpuri West and Botanical Garden, against 28 in the existing corridor.
“The interchange station will be the first station of the Janakpuri West-Botanical Garden corridor of Phase 3 which will connect Line 3 with important locations such as the Terminal 1 of the IGI Airport, Munirka, Hauz Khas, Nehru Place and Botanical Garden in Noida. About 53,700 additional commuters are expected to use the new interchange station by the year 2017. Presently, about 15,000 commuters use the Janakpuri West Metro station every day,” said a spokesperson for Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).
Currently, for south Delhi residents to travel to west Delhi on the Metro, they had to board the HUDA City Centre-Samaypur Badli line then change from Rajiv Chowk on the Dwarka-Noida corridor towards west Delhi. The Magenta Line will bring down the commute time between west Delhi and Gurgaon by 30 minutes.
The new station is underground and has come up in a park on one side (while coming from the district centre side) of the existing Janakpuri West station near the Piccadilly hotel. The station is approximately 17 metres below the surface.
According to the DMRC, the stretch from Janakpuri West to Palam was initially planned as an elevated one. But the alignment was converted to underground due to technical reasons.
“The proposed elevated alignment included construction of five sharp curves of radius 223 meters between Dashrathpuri and Janakpuri West involving permanent speed restrictions at these locations. The elevated stations at Dabri Mor and Janakpuri West were proposed to be constructed at a height of nearly 16 metres and 23 metres respectively. Construction of station structures at such height without hampering road traffic below and the operational station at Janakpuri West would have been difficult,” the spokesperson added.
For smooth flow of passengers at the interchange station, concourse-to-concourse connectivity is being provided. Extra long escalators (similar to those installed at Kashmere Gate Metro station) will connect the concourses.
“This new line will, therefore, significantly help in reducing congestion on Line 3 as well as the Rajiv Chowk Metro station as the journey from Janakpuri West to Botanical Garden by both the corridors will almost take the same time. Tunneling as well as civil work for the station has been completed,” the spokesperson added.
The stretch is likely to be opened by March end.
