The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has received a proposal from the Delhi Metro to procure 200 coaches, including 36 for Airport Express Metro worth Rs 2,422 crore.
The original proposal was of 952 coaches in 2017. Now it has been reduced to 200 after the Delhi Metro failed to get sanction for earlier proposal. Of these, 36 car coaches for airport line will be bought through a separate bidding process.
Top sources said there would not be any financial burden on the Delhi Government and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. The Delhi Metro will get loan of Rs 2,086 crore from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) while Rs 335 crore would be generated from its internal sources.
According to proposal, 164 coaches would be used for the third phase of metro. As per the proposed funding of additional coaches, the cost of phase III metro rail would be revised from Rs 35,242 crore to Rs 36,664 crore.
Sources said the Delhi Metro’s board of director had approved the proposal to procure 916 coaches in 2016 and also on October 23, 2016.
Of these, 334 coaches were proposed in the detailed project reports of phase IV metro. Due to delay in approval, Delhi Metro now submitted a revised proposal of 200 coaches in March this year.
After that it was again submitted in June this year.
With the commencement of Magenta line and a section of the Pink line, more commuters started using the metro. At present, DMRC has a fleet of 230 trains - most of which are eight-coach trains - with total 1,468 coaches. The number trains is set to go up to 244, with 1,654 coaches to be added in the next couple of months. Most of these trains will be used in Blue line, which is the busiest corridor of the Metro network.
The ongoing tussle between the Centre and Delhi has already delayed the approval of phase IV. Contractors engaged for the construction work of phase III are on the final stretch and will soon wind up their machinery and workforce. If there is a delay in starting work on phase IV, it would mean mobilising workers and machinery afresh, and this could add to the delay.