Delhiites and visitors to
the capital city can look forward to comfortable and easy travel
within the city in the coming decade. Promising this hassle free
commutation possibility is the Delhi Metro Projects.
For years now the
projects has moved from one mahogany table top to a teak table top,
but has not been translated into action. The number of vehicles on
the road rode up a rising graph and almost like Icarus touched the
sky! Planners and traffic policemen wrung their hands in despair and
transport experts debated and debated, on everything from cycle
tracks to the gestation period for a city metro to be functional.
Meanwhile I observed something of the people of Delhi-they were
becoming patient! The number of traffic jams were innumerable, but I
found most drivers switching off the ignition and relaxing. A few
years back they would have honked till the battery wore out. But for
the sake of developing some patience on the road, life could not be
spent waiting for the road to clear and so, on the first of October,
1998, the Delhi Metro Project swung into action. Part of the rail
system will run on the surface, part of it will be underground and
another part of it will be elevated. An network aggregate of 198.5 km
to meet the projected traffic demand for the horizon year 2021 is to
be undertaken in three phases.
Amidst celebration
excitement the first phase of this mega project was set in motion.
The first phase covers the distance between Shahdara and Tis Hazari.
It consists of 55.3 km and covers 3 routes: Delhi University to
Central Secretariat, Shahdara to Nangloi, Sumzimandi to Holambikalan.
Within two years of the
beginning of the new millennium, the first train should be chugging
through Delhi. It may be meaningless for a non-Delhiite to hear of
the distance covered by the first phase of the Metro or the kind of
traffic that traverses the distance today. Let me now explain to you
just what you will miss/ save if you travel by a Metro instead of a
car or a scooter or an autorickshaws or a cycle rickshaw or a bicycle
or even a horse drawn cart. Yes, this is a crowded corridor and you
have so many different types of transport to carry you. It may sound
romantic to think of moving to the rhythm of a horse drawn cart,
almost like a novel based in England of the eighteenth century. But
let me assure you that it is nothing like that with the sun glaring
down at you most of the time. Then there is the urgency to get to
your destination. Just as you seem to be moving along, a taxi will
overtake you and thus block the inflowing traffic. A traffic jam, a
small or big fight depending on individual tempers and the weather.
Finally, when you reach your destination, it is a desire for nivana
that dominates your senses.
When you sit in the
Metro, the MRTS project report says 31.85 lac commuters will be
siphoned off the road. No, the train would not be packed like sardin
tins. The train can carry 30,000 to 80,000 persons per hour per
direction. The trains will run every two-three minutes. The MRTS
survey says one train can carry the same amount of traffic that 9
lanes of buses can carry. Do they know that in India buses are so
full that a person within the bus breathes due to his intrinsic yogic
prowess and not normally? They answer in the affirmative, but even if
we allow for only eight lanes of buses, it will still be such a
relief. More the relief when you hear that there will be 3,500 buses
less on the road when the first phase is completed.
As excitement mounts and
I think I will defer all my outings to the year 2005 by which time
55.3 km of metro rail will be functional in Delhi. It is music to my
ears to think that travel time will be cut by 50-75%. The only
disadvantage of this is that the traffic was a good foil when you
were late. After 2005, that excuse may no longer be valid.
The Metro rail runs
entirely on electricity. According to their report they will not rob
us of our domestic consumption of electricity, they have already
tried providing for it from NTPC Thermal Power Station at Oriyya
stage II. Efforts are underway to make the trains safe and ensure
safety in the continuous supply of electricity. They also say that
the Metro will consume just 3% of Delhis power. It will
definitely clear the air of pollutants. When I heard the details
about the pollution the Metro is gong to relieve the Delhiites of, I
wished that like Rip Van Winkle I too could sleep off till the Metro
comes alive. As though to make my writing more eloquent, the
officials gave me figures of pollution near my house. Once the MRTS
comes they told me, the carbon dioxide levels would reduce by one
tenth (!) They had figures for other toxic gases, but I thought this
information was not good for my stomach. So I told them to keep it
ready for reference, but put it away as of now.
Travel by MRTS will not
be expensive. It will, as of calculations made today, cost Rs.5 for a
stretch of 7.2 km.
As Delhiites are holding
out a dream for themselves and their visitors, the MRTS project is
working hard boring its way to pave one for us.
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