News: Nothing rapid about Rapid Rail in Haryana-12-08-2021
Gurgaon: The progress of the Rapid Rail transit corridor project in the NCR areas of UP and Haryana are taking increasingly divergent paths. While the line from the national capital’s Sarai Kale Khan to Meerut has seen significant progress and viaducts for the tracks are being installed on a priority stretch in Ghaziabad, little has moved along the Delhi-Gurgaon-Rajasthan (Alwar) corridor.
The National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC), which is piloting the project, has written multiple letters to Haryana’s department of town and country planning (DTCP) in the past six months, seeking details of CLU (change of land use) in the green belt areas on the proposed route passing through Gurgaon but hasn’t received any response yet. Of the total 107km route, around 84km is in Haryana.
In fact, the Haryana government has already approved the detailed project report (DPR) of the project as well as the alignment of RRTS along the Delhi-Jaipur highway. The details of CLU are required for land from Kherki Daula to Manesar towards Jaipur and from Sehrawan to Boda Kalam village in Rewari on the highway. The delay in sharing the details could delay the project, now in the pre-construction phase, officials said.
In a recent letter to the DTCP, NCRTC’s project coordinator KC Sharma expressed his displeasure saying the corporation “finds it very strange that despite issuing various reminders, requisite information is still awaited”. NCRTC is seeking the details of CLU permission so it can take up the issue of land for the RRTS viaduct with the Haryana government for the development of the project.
“We have repeatedly requested the DTCP to share the details of CLU along the green belt of NH-48,” Sharma told TOI.
The 107km-long Delhi-Gurgaon-SNB Urban complex (Shahjahanpur-Neemrana-Behror) RRTS corridor, which is part of the Delhi-Alwar RRTS line, would start from Sarai Kale Khan in Delhi and culminate in Shahjahanpur of Rajasthan. In Gurgaon, the route will start from Old Delhi-Gurgaon Road and touch NH-48 at Signature Towers via Atul Kataria Chowk.
The route will be elevated till Kherki Daula in Gurgaon but will go underground from Kherki Daula and will emerge above the ground at IMT Manesar. Before entering Behror in Rajasthan, the line will be built along the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway and go via Dharuhera, Rewari and Bawal.
When contacted, Sanjeev Mann, senior town planner of Gurgaon, said, “We have directed the district town planner to compile details of CLU and share it with NCRTC at the earliest. We are coordinating with the agency and details will be shared at the earliest.”
The RRTS depot on the Delhi-Gurgaon-Rajasthan corridor is supposed to come up at Dharuhera. NCRTC has already identified around 78 acres of land and requested HSVP to hand it over for its construction. HSVP is in the process of handing over around 36 acres of land for the project.
Talking about the status of work on the Delhi-Gurgaon-Alwar corridor, NCRTC officials said the project is currently in the pre-construction phase.
“We are currently doing all the pre-construction work such as shifting of utilities, including water pipelines and electricity lines. This will help us become ready to start civic work as soon as the approvals come in,” said an NCRTC official.
Floating of tenders for the pre-construction work of the project began in 2018, following which geo-technical investigations were carried out.
The corridor is planned to be constructed in about five years’ time, excluding one year of pre-construction activities funded by the Union government (20%), the state governments concerned (20%) and other agencies (60%).
