By IANS
New Delhi : Delhi Metro Monday rejected suggestions to extend the underground section of its Central Secretariat-Badarpur line till Nehru Place that would have added Rs.850 crore to the project cost, saying it does not wish to be a loss-making outfit like the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC).
"You may recall the DTC is a financial burden on Delhi government to the extent of more than Rs.850 crores (Rs.8.5 billion) per annum. We do not want the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to also be a burden on the Delhi government," DMRC chief E. Sridharan has said in a letter to legislator Sushil Choudary.
The proposed line would be underground from Central Secretariat up to Defence Colony flyover, a distance of 6.1 km. Thereafter, it will be elevated up to Badarpur.
Choudary had written to Delhi Metro on April 14 suggesting extension of the underground stretch till Nehru Place.
"We examined the possibility of extending the underground length. This would involve an additional outlay of Rs.8.5 billion which would make the project financially unviable.
"Our effort has been to keep down the investment on metro projects so that we are able to pay back the loans taken (which is about 65 percent of the project cost) and DMRC does not become dependant on the government for operational subsidies," Sridharan said.
Apart from the cost factor, Delhi Metro stated another reason against an underground route in the area.
"Out of 4.44 km, 1.5 km will be in hard rock, which will make tunnelling difficult and time consuming. In case this elevated section is to be changed to underground, the project cannot be completed before the Commonwealth Games."
DMRC chief spokesman Anuj Dayal said since standard gauge was being adopted in the Central Secretariat-Badarpur corridor, the elevated structure would be more aesthetic and lighter.
"The metro will siphon away major chunk of the road traffic. Therefore, the road congestion will get considerably reduced. The sound level measurements taken on the Metro Corridors indicate that the sound levels due to train are much less than the road noise level," Dayal said.
In a similar letter to Cyrus Shroff, medical director of Shroff Eye Centre at Kailash Colony, Sreedharan gave the example of loss making DTC and said they don't want the DMRC to be also a burden on the taxpayers.
Shroff had written to DMRC to make the Defence colony-Nehru Place stretch underground.
"Apprehensions in regard to loss of privacy, noise level and road congestion are misplaced. The experience has been that once the metro line is completed along a road as elevated, the road congestion comes down as also the ambient noise level.
"The benefits that the metro would bring to the local people will more than offset the little inconvenience they have to undergo."
Delhi Metro ferries over 525,000 commuters a day and covers a network of 65 km.