On the day the Delhi Metro completed 15 years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi flags off Magenta line, a 12.64 km long section, taking the total network size closer to 350 km. The line will be thrown open to public at 5 pm today.

After DMRC Managing Director Mangu Singh briefed the PM, he travelled in the metro train, with others including UP Governor Ram Naik, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and Cabinet Ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and Mahesh Sharma. With this, Noida, a satellite city of New Delhi, gets another metro connection to parts of the country’s capital city - New Delhi.

The Noida-located Botanical Garden station connecting – Delhi located Kalkaji Mandir Metro section shall be opened in the evening for commercial operations. With this line, footfall at Noida’s Botanical Garden station is expected to increase three times – from 30,000 to 97,000 passengers daily.

This is also Delhi Metro’s first ever corridor to use driverless trains. According to DMRC, this is the first ever train to be used with Communication Based Train Control (CBTC) signalling technology which facilitates movement of trains with a frequency of 90 to 100 seconds. The new age Unattended Train Operation (UTO) enabled trains also will be operated for the first time on this section.

Delhi Metro is a 50:50 joint venture of the Centre and state of Delhi. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was not invited for the event.

PM urges to use public transport

Prime Minister Narendra Modi hoped that people will take pride in giving up private cars and travel in metro systems, benefiting environment and the country in the process, speaking after the launch of Magenta Line of Delhi Metro. And while Metro might require lots of investments running to crores – which reorients priorities -- but it reaps benefits for several passengers for hundreds of years.

He said that for the present generation, life stops without connectivity. Calling for weighing developmental systems in terms of benefits to people instead of politicising them, he hoped that many private car users will migrate to the metro system by contributing to this cause and take pride in stating that they travel in metro, driving for mass transit systems, multimodal transport systems.

“Use of solar energy in the metro will contribute towards this cause, lowering environmental pollution in the process, he said. Is it possible to lower India’s import of fossil fuel by 2022, despite higher energy requirements, he asked.

He reminded people that first Delhi Metro to operations started under the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In 2002, when India started the first metro operations, former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the first passenger, he said. By 2019, we aim to connect every village by roads – finishing the Prdhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana project -- started by Atal Bihari Vajpayi, he said.

He said it is a result of good governence and taking decisions that the pace of infrastructure work has increased since this government has come in, as he thanked the UP CM Yogi Adityanath for inviting him to the event.

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