20th year of ops: Delhi Metro exhibition shows rare pics of first piling work

Rare images of the very first piling work done in the national capital for building Delhi Metro and old newspaper clippings are among the archival documents put up on display as part of a permanent exhibition at the Kashmere Gate station of the network.

The exhibition -- 'Tracing Delhi Metro's Journey' -- has been launched to mark the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation entering into the 20th year of its operations, officials said.

The DMRC had begun its commercial operations on December 25, 2002, a day after then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had inaugurated its first stretch spanning 8.2 kilometre from Shahdara to Tis Hazari, with just six stations, on the Red Line.

The DMRC network's current span is nearly 392 km with 286 stations (including the Noida–Greater Noida Metro Corridor and Rapid Metro, Gurgaon).

A day after the inauguration of the first-ever corridor, the rush was so “massive” that authorities had to issue “paper tickets” to handle the flow of passengers, officials had told PTI earlier.

The introduction of the state-of-the-art rapid transit system was such a novel mode of transport in the city then that many people believed it was only there temporarily and the DMRC had to issue newspapers advertisements that it was “here to stay”, they had said.

This journey of nearly two decades of operations has been captured in a exhibition, mounted at the very location from where the then prime minister had inaugurated the Delhi's first ever metro corridor back in December 2002, a senior official said.

The Red Line itself has now extended on both sides, to Rithala in Delhi and New Bus Stand (Shaheed Sthal) in Ghaziabad.

"The plaque unveiled during the Delhi Metro's first inauguration event is placed right there (at the exhibition venue). The DMRC is promoting the location as a selfie-point too where people can come and become a part of the urban history of the city," a spokesperson of DMRC said.

"A large number of archival images as also anecdotes related to metro have been exhibited, including pictures charting the beginning of Delhi Metro's journey, such as the very first piling work that was done at Shastri Park. Piling is done to start work for erecting a pier," he told PTI.

The Delhi Metro in its long and eventful journey has had 41 inauguration events so far. On the commencement of 20th year of operations, 20 photos of those inaugurations have been displayed and more will be added in the days to come, the official said.

Also, 41 news clippings of those inaugurations have been displayed to take the visitors on a ride down memory lane. Invitation cards of those inaugural functions have also been displayed, he added.

From a humble 8.2 km to nearly 392 km, India's first mass rapid transit system has come a long way in its journey, and has achieved many firsts in the process.

India's first-ever driverless train -- on the Delhi Metro's Magenta Line (Line 8) --naugurated on December 28 last year by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In another milestone for the DMRC, driverless train operations on the 59-km Pink Line (Line 7) of the Delhi Metro was started from November 25 this year.

With this, the total stretch of DMRC's network which is under driverless operations, now stands at close to 97 km, putting Delhi Metro at fourth position globally, among such networks, officials earlier said.

The exhibition also displays a huge photo of the aerial view of Kashmere Gate metro station, the biggest interchange station of the network at present.

Kashmere Gate has stations of the Red Line, Yellow Line and Violet Line, making it a three-way interchange facility.

A metro coach-shaped latest map of the network has also been exhibited.

"The exhibition zone is in the paid area of the Kashmere Gate metro station, but it can be visited by commuters without paying any additional fee. The exhibition is permanent in nature," the spokesperson said.

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