New Delhi, Aug 8: As part of its long-term plans to ease over-crowding, Delhi Metro wants to convert its six-coach trains to eight-coach ones on its existing corridors and has placed orders for the cars.
Delhi Metro is currently in the process of lengthening its four-coach Bombardier trains into six-coach ones and 23 trains have already been inducted into its existing fleet.
“Our major problem today is severe overcrowding in trains for which we have taken steps to order more number of coaches. Coaches have been received. We are ordering further number of coaches and we are lengthening all these trains from four coaches to six coaches,” DMRC chief E Sreedharan said.
He was deposing before a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban Development headed by NDA convener Sharad Yadav.
“We want to lengthen the trains even to eight coaches for which we have also placed orders of rolling stock,” he told the Committee without elaborating further. On the inordinate delays on the network, Sreedharan admitted that there are certain problems which have been identified and engineers have been able to “set right” all these problems in the trains.
“Things are entirely under control. For the last two months, they had no problems in regard to the trains services,” the report, which was tabled in Parliament recently, said, adding Metro is running trains today every 2 minutes and 30 seconds on Gurgaon Line and 2 minutes and 40 seconds on Noida Line.
These two lines alone carry over 12 lakh people on a week day. Delhi Metro's total ridership crossed 18 lakh on Monday last.
On the Phase-III project, the Urban Development Ministry told the Committee that the revised Detailed Project Report (DPR) has been submitted by the Delhi Metro in February for approval by the Government.
The Phase-III envisages connecting another 104 km of the capital to the Metro network at a cost of Rs 35,242 crore including central taxes.
“The revised DPR has been circulated to Planning Commission, concerned Ministries/Departments and appraising agencies for necessary comments/advice. The revised DPR is under appraisal by the Ministry and is expected to be proposed for approval during the current financial year 2011-2012,” the committee was told. PTI
