In a rare treat for Delhi Metro commuters, Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself took a Metro train, and interacted with fellow passengers, on his way to inaugurate the much-awaited Badarpur-Faridabad Metro extension on Sunday. The Prime Minister took the train from Janpath Station on the Violet line and travelled till Bata Chowk Station in Faridabad, which was thrown open on the same day to the public.
While inaugurating the Metro line connecting Badarpur in Delhi and Faridabad in Haryana he said the Metro connectivity would be extended up to Ballabhgarh to link an important part of the State with the national Capital.
A sum of Rs700 crore would be spent on this project, he said while addressing a ‘Gati Pragati’ rally after inaugurating the Badarpur-Mujesar Metro link here on Sunday. He also said that Faridabad and Gurgaon in Haryana needed to be further connected through the Metro network.
The 13.8-km Badarpur-Mujesar Metro link, an extension of the Violet line between the ITO and Badarpur Metro stations, will have nine stations -- Sarai, NHPC Chowk, Mewala Maharajpur, Sector 28, Badkal Mor, Old Faridabad, Neelam Chowk Ajronda, Bata Chowk and Escorts Mujesar.
About 1.95 lakh passengers are expected to use the new corridor every day by the year-end, which cost Rs.2,500 crore to construct.
Modi expressed the hope that the new section would boost employment opportunities for the youth in this "key industrial hub" and would push "weekend tourism" from Delhi to Haryana.
"If there is one place that can attract tourists from Delhi, it is Haryana. People can use the metro to come to Haryana on the weekends and it can help promote weekend tourism in the State. And that would lead to employment opportunities for the youth here…Metro is not just a means of transport, but it can provide pace to economic activity. And therefore this rally was also named 'Gati-Pragati' (speed-progress) rally," he said.
Modi said that the only cure to all the ailments faced by the country was development and the extension of the Delhi Metro into Faridabad was the first step towards development of the city, and then the State.
"With development, youth will get employment, farmers will get the right price of his produce, poor children will get quality education and every poor family will have a home and access to good health care facility. That's why our Government is working with only one focus, one path and one destination: Development," he said.
He added that all people want are good roads, good hospitals and good schools, and that is what his Government was doing. "It should have happened in the last 60 years. But I won't just stop at criticizing old Governments for their failure, our responsibility is to find new solutions and take the nation to new heights," he said.
He added that his Government has taken up the formidable challenge to provide 'housing for all' by 2022 when India will celebrate 75 years of Independence.
The Prime Minister said that despite the recent economic crisis, India stood firm and that signifies that the results of the work done in the last 15 months of his Government were showing. "India is stable despite economic volatility. But we don't accept just stability. We don't want to stand firm just in one place. We want to move forward. And for that, we need support from all 125 crore people of our nation. We also need support of all the State Governments on the democratic path," he said.
The Prime Minister also commended Delhi Metro Rail Corporation for its efforts to make contribution to the green movement. "The newly-built section of metro has installed infrastructure to generate solar power to the tunes of around 2 MW. The same power will be used to help run its operations… When the entire world is worried about global warming, metro is running a successful green campaign," he said.
Addressing the rally, Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said that the new train line also marked the completion of 200 kms of the Delhi Metro network. He said that construction of 610 kms of metro lines is in progress in the country and laying of new lines measuring 620 kms is at an advanced planning stage, he said.
Naidu also said that a skywalk would be created to link a Metro station in Faridabad with the railway station there.
The new section is now being extended up to Ballabhgarh on the Faridabad side and till Kashmere Gate (beyond ITO station) in Delhi. After completion, the Kashmere Gate-Ballabhgarh corridor will be 46.6 km-long. After being thrown open for the public at 4 pm, the ridership of the new stretch was recorded at 16,728 till 8 pm.