Delhi-Meerut rapid rail to have six stations in Ghaziabad

GHAZIABAD: The officials of NCR Transport Corporation (NCRTC) on Friday held a meeting with the Ghaziabad Development Authority on the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut Rapid Rail Transit Corridor project and deliberated on its cost benefit analysis. The work on this 90-km corridor is expected to begin in March next year.
According to sources, six places have been earmarked in Ghaziabad district to develop stations under the transit-oriented development (TOD) within a radius of 1.5 km around each railway stations.“The six places which have been earmarked are Sahibabad, Ghaziabad city, Guldhar, Duhai, Muradnagar and Modinagar. The remaining eight stations will come up in Delhi and Meerut,” said GDA vice-chairperson Kanchan Verma. “The work on this section will begin in March 2018. The cost of the project has been pegged around Rs 32,000 crore, out of which UP goverment will have to shell out nearly Rs 4,500 crore in ten years. The completion year has been set for 2024,” said Verma.
“The NCRTC intends to recover the project cost through various means by 2054. Friday’s meeting was held to discuss these finer points,” said Verma. “Five heads have been identified through which the project cost will be recovered and these include stamp duty, external development charge (EDC), floor area ratio, purchasable floor area ratio and developing the 1.5 km radius into a commercial hub,” said Verma. “We have made available to them a 10-year data of stamp duty and FAR of the area in and around six proposed rapid rail stations,” added Verma.
The project, which will begin work from March next year, will reduce the travel time from Delhi to Meerut via Ghaziabad by an hour with rapid trains running at an average speed of 100-km/hr against a Metro train whose average speed is around 30-km/hr.
The project, conceived more than 10 years ago, is a segment of a larger plan to connect important towns in the NCR region with Delhi through a high speed-based commuter transit system.
NCRTC is a joint venture of the Union government, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and is executing the prioritized three RRTS corridors — Delhi-Alwar, Delhi-Meerut and Delhi-Panipat.
Eight such corridors have been identified under the Integrated Transportation Plan 2032 prepared by the National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB).
The other RRTS corridors are — Delhi-Baraut, Delhi-Hapur, Delhi-Khurja, Delhi-Palwal and Delhi-Rohtak.