Metro advances Magenta Line launch deadline to September

The Janakpuri-Noida 'Magenta Line' of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) will be ready to be commissioned by September this year, while a segment of the 'Pink Line' is also likely to be launched then.
Battling land acquisition issues, the project had missed its December 2016 deadline.
The revised figures form part of the progress report of DMRC's Phase III project.
Line 8, christened Magenta Line, will connect west Delhi to Noida via IGI Airport's domestic terminal. Stretches of it is likely to be commissioned by April and June respectively.
"Progress of civil works upto December 2016 is 95.97 per cent. Botanical Garden- Kalkaji section is likely to be opened by April 2017. The entire 34-km-long line is targeted for completion in September 2017," the report said.

Although the Delhi metro has not set any deadline for the full commissioning of the 59-km-long Pink Line, which is set to be the longest connecting line, a segment of it between Majlis Park - Lajpat Nagar section is targeted to be completed by September 2017.

"The targets for Lajpat Nagar- Shiv Vihar section will be worked out when land issues involving rehabilitation and resettlement at Trilokpuri and Hasanpur are resolved," it said.
The ITO-Kashmere Gate 'Heritage Corridor' is likely to be thrown open in March while the 11-km-long Mundka - Bahadurgarh section and 4-km-long Dwarka - Najafgarh sections are targeted for completion in June and December respectively.

DMRC chief Mangu Singh had earlier said that Magenta and Pink Lines, part of Metro's Phase III expansion, will be launched in a staggered manner i.E small sections will be made operational instead of the entire corridors being thrown open in one go.
Under the phase-III expansion project being implemented at a cost of around Rs 40,000 crore, a total of 140 km of network will be added to the current coverage of 213 km.