From Manoj Pokhriyal

Berlin:Commuters of Delhi Metro will get some relief from the congestion as the public transporter set to take delivery of 10 to 14 coaches every month from Bombardier, the rail equipment division of Canadian entity Bombardier Inc, a top company official said today.

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (DMRC) had placed an order of 162 cars with Bombardier last year for addition of trains and coaches in its network, which is facing overcrowding during the peak hours of the day.

“The first delivery from Bombardier will be within this month. We are going to get a total of 162 cars in phases. Once we have it, it will definitely have some impact on the total congestion,” DMRC, Director of Rolling Stock, H S Anand said.

DMRC will be getting delivery of 10-14 cars every month from Bombardier, he said, adding that in a “year or so” the company will get the delivery of all the 162 coaches.

“The congestion will somewhat ease but I cannot say that it will completely go away,” he said, adding that these cars will cater to the requirement of the existing Red Line (Rithala-Dilshad Garden), Blue Line (Dwarka Sector 21-Noida City Centre and Vaishali) and Yellow Line (Jahangirpuri-HUDA City Centre) of the metro network.

Anand was speaking to reporters after he was presented a commemorative metro key by Bombardier Transportation President (Asia-Pacific Region) Benoit Cattin-Martel at a ceremony to mark the first delivery of the order at InnoTrans 2016 exhibition here.

The new trains, which would be manufactured at company’s sites at Savli and Maneja in Gujarat, will increase the number of DMRC’s existing fleet of Bombardier ‘Movia’ metro cars from the 614 to 776.

Cattin-Martel said there has been “high level of localisation” executed in the project and it also fulfills the Delhi Metro indigenous procurement plan that encourages local manufacturing as well as Indian government ‘Make in India’ initiative.

Meanwhile, Anand said the Delhi Metro is also procuring another 96 coaches from state-run BEML and the delivery would start “somewhere in January or February next year”.

These new additions of trains and coaches are expected to help control the issue of overcrowding in trains of Delhi Metro whose current ridership is about 3 million passengers daily.

PTI