Delhi Metro invites bids for extension of Airport line to Dwarka Sec 25

Submissions for the project to be accepted till Aug 14

The Airport Line of the Delhi Metro will be extended till Dwarka Sector 25, where a new underground station will be built near an upcoming international convention centre.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has invited bids for the construction of the 1.5-km-long extension and the station.

Currently, the high-speed corridor runs between the New Delhi station and Dwarka Sector 21.

The metro floated the tender recently while the feasibility survey of the project was undertaken last year, after the Centre proposed that the convention centre be brought under the fold of the high-speed metro network.

A DMRC spokesperson said bids for the project would be accepted till August 14 and the tender opened on August 16.

Last December, the Centre had approved the project master plan for the proposed Rs 26,000-crore international exhibition -cum-convention centre which, when completed, will be one of the biggest in Asia.

The phase-I of the convention centre project is expected to be commissioned by June 2019.

The 23-km-long Airport Corridor (Orange Line), which struggled to attract commuters at one point, has six stations. Trains run every 10 minutes between 8 am and 8.30 pm and it takes around 20 minutes to reach the IGI Airport from the New Delhi station on this line.

The DMRC took over the operations of the Airport link in July 2013 after Reliance Infrastructure's subsidiary Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Ltd (DAMEPL) terminated its concessionaire agreement.