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New Delhi : The Najafgarh – Dhansa Bus Stand section on the Grey Line of Delhi Metro was inaugurated on September 18, 2021, by Union Housing and Urban Affairs & Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal,via video conferencing. The Dhansa Bus Stand is an underground station and an extension of the presently operational Dwarka- Najafgarh Corridor.
Puri, speaking on the occasion, said that the metro rail system has delivered a world class transportation system to our citizens. Delhi Metro has been a trailblazer, in that sense, with its ridership reaching 65 lakh per day during pre-Covid era, while the overall ridership in Metros across the country was 85 lakhs.
Puri said that as we gradually recover from the Covid – 19 pandemic, enhanced mobility requirements of the masses in our cities will play an important role in taking the economy forward. The connections such as the one to Dhansa will play a vital role in reaching to rural areas also. The gap between the rural and urban parts of Delhi is now being bridged with such connections which are going deep into the interior areas of the national capital. He also called upon the Delhi Government for expediting the approvals of pending projects of Delhi Metro, according to a PIB release.
The Minister mentioned that at present around 740 km Metro line is operational in the country and with the Metro system seeing a massive surge in its network it will be more than 900 km by 2022. More than 1,000 km of Metro lines is under construction in the country, and it will reach 2,000 km target in the near future.
Puri said that the inauguration of today’s 1.2 km stretch extension might be small from the point of view of network length, but from the perspective of providing enhanced connectivity to the interior parts of the national capital, this new extension is an important milestone. The Najafgarh – Dhansa Bus Stand corridor will take the Metro to many new suburban localities in the Najafgarh area of Delhi, he added.
The Minister said that Metro has changed the face of urbanisation as labourers working in Delhi or in big cities now can have affordable dwellings on the outskirts of villages near the cities and can commute daily for work on Metro saving on money and time.
Secretary, Housing &Urban Affairs, Durga Shankar Mishra, said that two vital landmarks in the Metro rail history of the nation were achieved with the operationalisation of the first ever driverless Metro train and the implementation of the National Common Mobility Card facility on the Airport Express Line of the Delhi Metro. He said that with the 110 km becoming the driverless stretch, it has become the longest driverless stretch in the world.