The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on Wednesday successfully completed the first underground Metro tunnel below the operational ring road. The tunnel was built for the Majlis Park - Shiv Vihar Metro corridor with the breakthrough of a Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) at Shalimar Bagh.
“This tunnel was built by DMRC engineers without any disturbance to the surface traffic running on the Ring Road above. The TBM completed the tunnelling of a 1,247-metre long tunnel from Netaji Subhash Place to Shalimar Bagh consisting of 1,037 rings with a diametre of 5.7 metres,” said a DMRC spokesperson.
The boring machine was lowered in the month of October last year. The tunnel also crossed the elevated viaduct of the currently operational Dilshad Garden — Rithala Metro corridor near Netaji Subhash Place, which was a major engineering challenge, he added.
This section of the alignment had passed below a drain near Netaji Subhash Place, due to which, tunnelling had to be done 19 metres below the surface.
In addition, while carrying out the tunnelling work, the engineers had to be careful about the piling work of a flyover, which is in progress currently right above the tunnel on the Ring Road at Shalimar Bagh.
The tunnel also passed below the Kasturba Polytechnic, which is another major landmark in the area. While this tunnelling drive was for the up line, the drive for the down line (parallel tunnel) is expected to start in April.