Delhi Metro's Magenta Line to be inaugurated today, will reduce Gurgaon-Noida travel by 30 mins

NEW DELHI: The much-awaited Janakpuri West-Kalkaji Mandir Metro corridor of Delhi Metro's Magenta Line will be inaugurated on Monday bringing a huge sigh of relief to commuters. The stretch that begins on Sunday will bring domestic terminal of the city airport on the DMRC network. It will also cut the travel time between Noida and Gurgaon by at least 30 minutes.

The 24.82-km-long corridor will be flagged off by Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs (Independent Charge) Hardeep Singh Puri and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at 4.30 pm from the Nehru Enclave Metro station and then travel to Hauz Khas.

However, the passengers will have to wait for one more day to use the services as it will be thrown open to the public on Tuesday from 6 AM from the Kalkaji Mandir and Janakpuri West stations simultaneously. 

The Janakpuri West - Kalkaji Mandir section, comprising of 16 stations, will be the longest opened so far in Delhi Metro's Phase 3. With the opening of this stretch, the entire 38.2 kilometres long Janakpuri West - Botanical Garden Magenta corridor covering the city's arterial Outer Ring Road will become operational. This stretch will take the total length of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) network to 277 km.

"The highlights of this corridor will be the two new interchange facilities that will come up at Janakpuri West (with the Dwarka - NOIDA/ Vaishali Blue Line) and Hauz Khas (with the HUDA City Centre - Samaypur Badli Yellow line). The domestic terminals of the Indira Gandhi International Airport will also get directly connected by the Metro. Commuters travelling from Gurugram will now be able to change trains at Hauz Khas to reach south Delhi and NOIDA. Residents of NOIDA will also get direct connectivity to the domestic terminal of the airport," an official DMRC release said.

The stations on this corridor are: Janakpuri West, Dabri Mor, Dashrathpuri, Palam, Sadar Bazar, Terminal 1 - IGI Airport, Shankar Vihar, Vasant Vihar, Munirka, RK Puram, Hauz Khas, IIT, Panchsheel Park, Chirag Delhi, GK Enclave, Nehru Enclave.

Key features of the Janakpuri West - Kalkaji Mandir Metro corridor:

- At 29 metres, the five-level new Hauz Khas station is the deepest metro station in the entire network and an engineering landmark as its tunnel goes beneath that of the old station.

- Hauz Khas (with Yellow Line) and Janakpuri West (with Blue Line) stations are the interchange facilities on this corridor, besides the existing Kalkaji Mandir station (with Violet Line).

- The segment will have 16 stations -- 14 underground, two elevated. This section will be the longest stretch to have been opened so far in the DMRC's Phase-III project.

- Terminal 1 of the IGI Airport has also been connected to the metro network through this corridor, with an eponymous station on it.

- The corridor will operate with 24 trains which will gradually increase to 26 apart from the operating reserves. 

- The frequency will be 5 minutes and 15 seconds during peak hours through the whole section and if passenger traffic demands shorter intermediate loops with higher frequency will be introduced after studying the traffic pattern.

On December 25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the 12.64-km-long stretch of the Magenta Line's Botanical Garden-Kalkaji Mandir corridor, cutting down the travel time between Noida and parts of south Delhi by more than 30 minutes. Now, with the opening of the remainder of the Magneta Line, the travel time between Noida and Gurgaon will shrink by at least 30 minutes.

"After the inauguration of this vital link, the approximate time to commute between HUDA City Centre (end of Yellow Line on Gurgaon side) and Botanical Garden (on Blue Line in Noida) stations will be about 50 minutes," DMRC officials said. 

"Presently, a metro journey from HUDA City Centre to Botanical Garden takes about an hour and a half with the interchange at Rajiv Chowk station," they said.

The Delhi Metro is also touting the Magenta Line as a 'Knowledge Corridor' as four major universities of the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR), have been connected on it.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) are the institutions which will get metro connectivity with the opening of the new corridor and Jamia Milia Islamia University in south Delhi and Amity University in Noida have already got metro connectivity with the opening of the Botanical Garden-Kalkaji Mandir section in December last year.