Fast tracking the civil construction work on Central Secretariat to Mandi House stretch of the proposed Central Secretariat to Kashmere Gate corridor, the Delhi Metro on Tuesday achieved tunnel breakthrough at Janpath Metro station. This is the third tunnel breakthrough as part of Delhi Metro’s phase III construction work, completing the up line tunnelling of the Mandi House to Janpath stretch. In order to decongest the busy Rajiv Chowk Metro station, train services on the Central Secretariat to Mandi House stretch are expected to start by March next year.

The tunnel boring machine (TBM) to construct the underground stretch was lowered at the Mandi House shaft on September 25, last year. “The TBM emerged at the Janpath Metro station site after making a 1,516 m long tunnel from Mandi House rotary on the up line. The TBM emerged from the Northwest shaft of the upcoming Janpath station close to the Tibetan Market,” said a DMRC spokesperson.

The maximum depth of the tunnel constructed is 24 m below the earth surface. “The tunnel passed beneath a lot of important buildings of Central Delhi like American Centre, Nepal Embassy, Fulbright House, Antariksh Bhawan, Scindia House, Electrical Sub Station, Janpath Market and Jeevan Prakash Building. The excavated earth was deposited at Mukundpur Depot and 53, 000 cubic m of earth was excavated in 182 working days,” he added.

“The stations at Janpath and Mandi House are also being constructed using the cut and cover technique. To complete the stretch, another TBM is working on the down line stretch,” he said.

The three km stretch will comprise two metro stations at Janpath and Mandi House and is part of the upcoming Central Secretariat to Kashmere Gate corridor. The upcoming interchange station at Mandi House will provide interchange point for line 6 (Central Secretariat-Badarpur), line 2 (Jahangirpuri-HUDA City Centre) and line 3 (Noida City Centre-Dwarka sector 21).