Central Vista to gain a new Metro connection

THe unification storage locker on wed sanctioned ₹12,015 crore for deuce-ace new Delhi Metro corridors spanning 16 kilometres, including a new route through Central Vista that will loop the government’s newly redeveloped seat of power into the national capital’s transit lifeline.Wednesday’s announcement, timed to the 23rd anniversary of the Capital’s first Metro operations, includes what the government called Phase V(A) approval, comprising a further extension of the Magenta line (in addition to the phase 4 expansion of the route currently under construction) and extensions at both ends of the Golden line, which too is part of the ongoing fourth phase of the network’s expansion.The corridors are expected to be ready in three years, said Union information and broadcasting minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. “With these new lines, there will be a reduction in carbon emissions by 33,000 tonnes every year,” Vaishnaw told reporters.The centrepiece RK Ashram Marg-Indraprastha corridor — which will be an extension of the Magenta line — will tunnel 9.9km through nine underground stations, including Central Secretariat, Kartavya Bhavan, India Gate and Bharat Mandapam. Vaishnaw dubbed it the “Kartavya Bhavan Corridor”, estimating 60,000 office workers and 200,000 daily visitors will gain Metro access to the ₹20,000-crore Central Vista complex and the popular India Gate area.The Magenta line is being extended from Janakpuri West, where it terminates at present, to RK Ashram station, where it will intersect with the Blue line.According to officials who asked not to be named, the focus of the current phase of expansion is on increasing network density within the urban core rather than pushing the Metro further into peripheral areas. By adding stations and short links in already built-up zones, the plan seeks to enhance accessibility and reduce pressure on congested interchange stations through additional routing options.Sewa Ram, a transport planning professor at the School of Planning and Architecture, noted that the central Delhi corridor will serve high-footfall destinations including Bharat Mandapam and the National Zoological Park. “Using this line, visitors can easily access Central Vista, Sunder Nursery, the zoo and other heritage sites,” he said. “The improved access will allow people to seamlessly walk to multiple cultural attractions without using any motorised vehicle.”The Magenta line expansion, confirmed by a Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) official who asked not to be named, represents a departure from the metro’s typical radial expansion pattern.Two shorter extensions will bookend the Golden line, currently under construction as part of Phase IV between Tughlakabad and Airport Terminal 1: a 2.3-km connector from the airport to Aerocity, which Vaishnaw said is nearing completion and poised to handle increased flight operations, and a 3.9-km stretch from Tughlakabad to Kalindi Kunj. That southern extension will effectively link the Golden Line to the existing Magenta Line at Kalindi Kunj station, creating new interchange possibilities for Noida and Faridabad commuters travelling to Gurugram via three stations at Sarita Vihar Depot, Madanpur Khadar and Kalindi Kunj.“All these sections are good missing links that have the potential to shift several categories of road users towards the metro. The Indraprastha-RK Ashram link was essential and long overdue. The national capital has needed this link to its central business district that will facilitate thousands of office-goers and tourists. Additionally, the NCR city linkage between Noida and Faridabad will also be highly used as road connectivity is also not very direct and highly congested via Kalindi Kunj,” said S Velmurugan, chief scientist and head of the traffic engineering division at the Central Road Research Institute.The 13 stations — 10 underground, three elevated — are slated for completion within three years, though the Metro’s recent record suggests caution; Phase III, approved to be completed in five years in 2011, took a decade to finish.Funding will flow from the Centre, the Delhi government and international agencies including Japan International Cooperation Agency, which has bankrolled nearly half of the Metro’s ₹1.5 lakh crore expansion since 1998.The approval arrives as Phase IV construction — 111km, 83 stations, ₹46,845 crore — nears completion of its priority corridors, now 80% built and expected to open by December 2026, two years behind schedule.That phase, which began in 2019 after a Supreme Court intervention resolved a Centre-Delhi funding dispute, will push the network past 500km once operational. A separate Green line extension from Inderlok to Indraprastha, also under construction, will intersect with the new Central Vista route at Indraprastha station.Delhi Metro currently operates 395km across 12 lines and 289 stations, ferrying an average 6.6 million passengers daily — a figure that touched a record 8.2 million on August 8.(With inputs from Snehil Sinha)