INDIAN prime minister, Mr Narendra Modi, launched a number of metro and light rail schemes on March 6, either virtually or in person, ahead of the country’s general election in April/May.
Modi opened the first 6km section of the 27-station Agra metro, from Taj East Gate to Mankameshwar. The line will connect Unesco World Heritage sites including the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Sikandra Fort.
The total cost of the 30km two-line Agra metro, operated with a fleet of Alstom Movia trains, is estimated at Rs 83.8bn ($US 1.02bn). The project has been backed by a $US 491m loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB).
The other new metro lines opened by Modi on March 6 were:
- the Rs 49.7bn East-West line in Kolkata. This includes India’s first undersea section of metro between Howrah Maidan and Mahakaran, which runs in a 520m double-track tunnel 13m below the surface of the River Hooghly. Modi rode on the inaugural train.
- a section of the Pune metro from Ruby Hall Clinic to Ramwadi, and
- the Phase 1B extension of the Kochi metro from SN Junction to Tripunithura.
The prime minister also inaugurated a further 17km stretch of the Delhi - Ghaziabad - Meerut Rapid Rail Transit System (RRTS). The newly-opened 160km/h line includes stations at Murad Nagar, Modi Nagar North and Modi Nagar South. A total of 34km, from Sahibabad to Modi Nagar, is now operational.
On March 5, Modi celebrated the completion of track doubling and electrification of the 22km Sanathnagar - Moula Ali line in Telengana state.
The line has been commissioned with automatic signalling and has been completed as part of the Multi Modal Transport Service Phase 2 project. The work allows passenger trains to run on this line for the first time.
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