Quashing all speculation on the extension of the Airport Express line, Delhi Metro on Tuesday said that it would not prove to be a viable business model to extend the corridor.
The extension of the 22.7 km link that connects Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport to the heart of the national Capital had been proposed to increase traffic and revenue on the loss making corridor. However, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) chief feels that the extension of the corridor will only mount the losses, rendering it a non-sustainable model.
Delhi Metro had taken over the operations of the Airport line since July this year and faces mighty challenges in operating the bleeding corridor. “Though we have registered a 25 per cent increase in passenger traffic on the corridor, taking the line further to Gurgaon does not seem a viable option. The extension of the corridor till Gurgaon will involve an investment of approximately `3,000 crore and the likelihood of the returns in form of increase in passenger traffic seems limited. Investing the whopping sum for 10,000 to 12,000 additional passengers will not be a sustainable model,” said
Mangu Singh, Managing Director, DMRC.
He added that once arbitration process is complete, it will be the Corporation’s priority to find out ways to increase the footfall on the present corridor. “The arbitration process, which will settle the amount of payment to be made to the former concessionaire of the line, Reliance Infrastructure is expected to take another three to four months. Once that is complete and the Airport link is officially handed over to DMRC, the decision to improve the connectivity of the Airport line to increase the footfall will be finalized. At present, the line is registering a daily ridership of 12,500 passengers daily,” he added.
DMRC has recently increased the frequency of trains on the line for the benefit of the passengers. Enhancing the reach of the corridor to attract more passengers through a network of feeder buses and making the metro card a common card for the Airport line and other Delhi Metro lines are some of the facilities DMRC proposes to provide to the commuters once the arbitration process is over. Singh made the comments during a ceremony to celebrate 11 years of operations of Delhi Metro’s operations in the national Capital.