Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched India's first-ever driverless train operations of Delhi Metro and said that over 25 cities across the country will have the metro service by 2025.
A fully automated driverless train will operate on the 37-kilometre long Magenta Line between Janakpuri West and Botanical Garden, thus eliminating the possibility of human error.
With these new trains, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation will enter the elite league of 7% of the world's Metro networks that can operate without drivers, an official said.
Participating in the function through a video-link, the Prime Minister recalled that the Delhi Metro started operations during the tenure of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and expanded from five cities in 2014 to 18 cities in 2020.
“By 2025, we will take this service to more than 25 cities,” the Prime Minister said after virtually flagging the driverless metro.
Modi said India had a metro network of 248 km when his government was formed in 2014, which will expand further to 700 km by 2025.
“In 2014, 17 lakh people used to travel by metro. Today, the footfall has increased by five times. This is the evidence of ease-of-living," he said.
He also inaugurated the National Common Mobility Card, which will be fully operationalised on the Airport Express Line to enable anyone carrying a RuPay-Debit Card issued from any part of the country to travel on the Airport Express Line. This facility will become available on the entire Delhi Metro network by 2022.
The prime minister took a swipe at the previous UPA government. “That time, no one paid heed to the future's requirement, work used to be done half-heartedly and there was a delusion. The result was such that in various parts of the country, a huge gap came in the infrastructure demand and fulfilment,” Modi said.
(Published 28 December 2020, 11:40 IST)
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