Monorail to act as feeder service to Metro in Lucknow

In 2009,the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) had tied up with DMRC to prepare a Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the Metro rail project. On Thursday,DMRC General Manager SD Sharma made a presentation about the progress of the DPR.

A few weeks ago,a three-member LDA team had visited Mumbai to study monorail and the LDA officials made a presentation about the monorail and its opportunities in Lucknow.

A decision was also taken to extend the metro rail from Polytechnic tri-section to Patrakarpuram crossing in Gomti Nagar in North-South corridor.

This Gomti Nagar link will be 3.5 kms long and the officials were directed to check feasibility of extending it to Gomti Nagar Extension housing scheme in future.

As the North-South corridor passes close to various high-security government buildings including Vidhan Bhawan,a 15-km underground stretch from Mavaiyya to Hazrtaganj has been proposed. A 6.5-km stretch of the East-West corridor — from Charbagh to Thakurganj — will be underground too.

The North-South corridor will have 25 stations — eight of them underground. There will be 12 stations — seven of them underground ¿ in the East-West corridor.

There will be four terminals,including one each at Munshipulia,Hardoi Road,Charbagh and near Amausi airport. There will be two depots,one each at Hardoi Road and Amausi airport.

At Thursday’s meeting,it was decided to develop a station at the metro terminal proposed opposite to Amausi airport.

As the Metro route was passing through restricted areas of various protected monuments,it was also decided that the alignment should be designed in way that fulfills all norms of Archaeological Survey India and the UP Directorate of Archeology.

“After making the changes in alignment as per today’s directives,the DMRC will submit the DPR very soon,” said an LDA official.

Officials said the entire Metro rail project will cost around Rs 10,000 crore. It was decided that the LDA and the DMRC will study the funding models adopted by other states. The LDA vice-chairman,Mrityunjay Kumar Narain,refused to comment.