Cabinet approves body to link NCR region

First phase will connect five towns with Delhi

The Cabinet on Thursday approved constitution of a National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC), which will implement the ambitious scheme of connecting the national capital to neighbouring towns. It will take up three corridors on a priority basis, which will link Delhi to Sonipat, Panipat, Alwar, Ghaziabad and Meerut with a high-speed rail-based commuter transit system. 

“The NCRTC will be responsible for design, construction, operation and maintenance of the Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) on a similar pattern as the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation,” said a government release. “It has been constituted to provide comfortable and fast transit to NCR towns and meet the high growth in transport demand.”

It will come into existence in two months and operate subsidiaries for different corridors. In the initial stage, three priority corridors - Delhi-Sonipat-Panipat (111 km), Delhi-Gurgaon-Alwar (180 km) and Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut (90 km) - will be taken up. 

According to estimates, the Delhi-Panipat corridor will cater to 3.77 lakh commuters daily in 2016, which will go up to 9.83 lakh in 1941. The Delhi-Alwar corridor will have a capacity of 6.9 lakh, which will go up to 15.1 lakh in 2041. The Delhi-Meerut corridor has been estimated to cater to 5.7 lakh commuters in 2016 and 11.4 lakh in 2041.

The three corridors are among the eight which were identified by the National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) in 2009. The NCPRB had prepared a “Functional Plan on Transport for NCR-2032,” which recommended eight RRTS corridors to connect important towns of the NCR with a high-speed rail-based commuter transit system.

Five other corridors are Delhi-Faridabad-Ballabgarh-Palwal, Ghaziabad-Khurja, Delhi-Bahadurgarh-Rohtak, Delhi-Ghaziabad-Hapur and Delhi-Shahadra-Baraut.

A task force set up by the Planning Commission in its meeting in December 2009 proposed the construction of a Special Purpose Vehicle, called the NCRTC, for the implementation of a comprehensive integrated multi-modal sub-urban commuter transportation system for the NCR, to start with a corpus of Rs 100 crore.

This joint venture company will have the Ministry of Urban Development, Railways and the Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and the Uttar Pradesh governments as partners.

The Centre will give 50 per cent and the rest will be equally shared by Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.

While the Urban Development Ministry and the Railways would contribute 22.5 per cent of the amount each, the National Capital Region Planning Board would contribute five per cent.

The four state governments (Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) would contribute 12.5 per cent each. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in June 2011 by the Government of India, the NCRPB and the Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi governments for the formation of the NCRTC.