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Phase - 3 Challenges ■ Central Secretariat - Kashmere Gate ■ Janakpuri West - Botanical Graden ■ Majlis Park - Shiv Vihar Anuj Dayal Copyright @ Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. First Edition : All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. Published by: Corporate Communications Department Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. Website: www.delhimetrorail.com Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge the assistance given to me in research, copy and production by Ms. Sushma Gaur (JGM, CC), Mr. Tomojit Bhattacharjee (DGM, CC), Sandhya Sharma (Manager, CC) and Himangshu Sarmah (Manager, CC) for this book. Anuj Dayal Foreword The third phase of expansion of the Delhi Metro has been one of its most challenging construction assignments as it is undoubtedly one of the largest ever infrastructure projects taken up anywhere in India in an urban environment. While the entire Phase 3 of the Delhi Metro spans about 160 kilometres, its three main corridors – the Central Secretariat – Kashmere Gate section, the Janakpuri West – Botanical Garden corridor and the Majlis Park – Shiv Vihar corridor have been covered in this book where various engineering challenges and landmarks have been focused upon. The Central Secretariat – Kashmere Gate section was primarily constructed in the old Delhi area and the alignment passed through many heritage buildings and other centuries old structures. It was a mammoth task to successfully complete the section while taking care of the safety of the structures nearby. The Janakpuri West – Botanical Garden corridor passes through the arterial Outer Ring Road of the national capital while the Majlis Park – Shiv Vihar section covers the Ring Road. Both these sections are extremely crucial from the point of view of connectivity and enormous engineering challenges were encountered during the construction work since the alignments passed through very busy roads and congested commercial and residential areas. In this book, an attempt has been made to encapsulate all those challenges in a language comprehensible to readers of all categories. I congratulate Mr. Anuj Dayal and his team at the Corporate Communications department in DMRC for this wonderful and informative compilation. Archiving of these engineering achievements is very important so that future generations can also benefit. I wish this publication all success. Dr. Mangu Singh Managing Director Author's Remarks Phase 3 of the Delhi Metro witnessed a transition in terms of leadership with the baton of this fast expanding organisation being handed over to Dr. Mangu Singh from Dr. E Sreedharan. Dr. Singh has successfully steered this massive phase of expansion, ensuring the completion of work and deserves full credit for his innovative approach in tackling technological challenges and firmness in dealing with the land acquisition hurdles which saw the largest urban intervention in India after independence being successfully completed. This expansion has brought the Delhi Metro on to the world map once again in terms of technological advancement and has also steered the Delhi Metro on the path to soon become the fourth largest Metro system in the world. If the first two phases of the Delhi Metro laid the foundation of a robust mass transit system in India's capital city, the third phase has been conceived in such a manner that the Metro has now become accessible for almost all major localities of the national capital. The third phase of the Delhi Metro project was originally supposed to be only 103 kilometres but gradually increased in size with the Metro going to various parts of the National Capital Region including Bahadurgarh, Ghaziabad, NOIDA, Ballabhgarh etc. which made the whole project about 160 kilometres in length. All these corridors, in public perception, were always seen as part of Phase 3, though many of these extensions were sanctioned in the later stages. Thus seen in an overall perspective, the volume of work involved in Phase 3 actually almost equalled the total work which was done by the DMRC in phases 1 and 2 put together in 12 and a half years. The new Metro trains equipped with the latest technologies, signalling apparatus matched with the best in the world and commuter amenities designed in tune with the changing times made the third phase of Delhi Metro's expansion, one of the most challenging infrastructure development projects anywhere in the contemporary world. In this phase, work was taken up in an unprecedented 11 different corridors. Over 30 mammoth Tunnel Boring Machines were pressed into service and close to 30,000 men and women of different backgrounds and nationalities came together to realise a dream for the people of Delhi. As mentioned earlier, the corridors, did not remain confined within the national capital, rather they spread far and wide covering many new corners of the NCR. Over a million new passengers are expected to benefit from this expansion drive and as per a study, over seven lakh vehicles are expected to be reduced everyday from the streets of Delhi in 2018 because of the Metro services. Clearly, the benefits of the Delhi Metro will be much beyond just providing better transportation options. Out of all the corridors constructed as part of Phase 3, three corridors actually stand out because of their importance as well as the innumerable challenges faced during their construction work. While the Central Secretariat - Kashmere Gate corridor passed through old Delhi, the Janakpuri West – Botanical Garden and Majlis Park – Shiv Vihar corridors were constructed to cater to the arterial Outer Ring Road and Ring Road of the city. All these three corridors were extremely complicated from the perspective of both planning and execution. These sections passed through the most central parts of the national capital which were already very crowded and were grappling with issues such as overflowing traffic. Carrying out construction in such areas without causing any major traffic diversions or demolition of existing buildings and structures was a major challenge. One of the major challenges that the Delhi Metro faced in Phase 3 was land acquisition since the new land acquisition act was in place during this phase of the project which made it extremely difficult to acquire land as the machinery to be put in place to implement this act was still not in place and compensation levels were also expected to be much higher. In comparison, in the earlier phases, DMRC was able to acquire the land needed for the project reasonably smoothly under the provision of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 with the help of the state government and good judicial support. DMRC, thus had to acquire private land in Phase 3 through direct negotiation with individual land owners which was a difficult and time consuming process. Phase 3 also witnessed completely standalone new lines with new technology being used on the 59 kilometre long Majlis Park to Shiv Vihar corridor and the 38 kilometre long line from Janakpuri West to Botanical Garden. Lines such as these used completely new technology such as the Communication Based Train Control (CBTC) which enables trains to run in fully automated modes with more frequency and introduction of platform screen doors etc. In comparison most of the Phase 2 lines used the existing technology and were an extension of the already constructed lines of Phase 1 such as the extensions of the yellow line to Jahangirpuri, HUDA City Centre etc. It may be pertinent also to mention that the composition of the contractors in Phase 3 also underwent a change especially in civil construction with key contractors being led by the Indian consortiums coming into the picture rather than foreign led consortiums witnessed earlier, which carried with them a different set of needs, supervision and other managerial issues which had to be addressed by the project managers in a completely different way. This change led to many unforeseen issues cropping up which had to be resolved. The mandatory sanctions for the proposed Phase 3 corridors started coming from 2011 in phases. Actual construction work began in 2012 and the first corridor of the third phase of expansion between Central Secretariat and Mandi House was inaugurated in 2014 within two years. It is remarkable that the construction of about 160 kilometres of Metro lines has been completed in such a short time time despite the fact that there have been innumerable construction, technological and land acquisition related issues. The quantum of underground work in this phase was even more than the combined length of underground sections in first two phases of Delhi Metro's expansion. Phase 3 has close to 54 kilometres of underground corridors while phase 1 and 2 had a total of 47 kilometres. The Central Secretariat - Kashmere Gate corridor passed through an array of heritage buildings, many of them of great historical importance. In addition, the old Delhi localities through which the alignment passed had a number of extremely old structures and constructing the Metro through such a congested locality was a massive challenge for DMRC's engineers. Immaculate care had to be taken to ensure that the heritage structures along the corridor faced minimal impact by the Metro construction. All the mandatory regulations laid down by the National Monuments Authority (NMA) also had to be taken care of as their prior approval was mandatory for carrying out the work. Thus, during the tunnelling work, elaborate instrumentation was done to monitor the progress of the TBMs as well as any possible impact on the buildings above. Even during construction work in the New Delhi areas such as Central Secretariat, Mandi House, Janpath and ITO, there were many challenges.

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