The Uttarakhand government has made a big push for the metro connectivity in Dehradun in the State Budget presented on 15 March.
Presenting the Budget 2023, Finance Minister Prem Chand Aggarwal announced a special allocation of Rs 101 crore for metro service in the state capital city.
Dehradun Metro
The 22.42-km-long Metro project in Dehradun will be a Metro Neo service.
There will be two corridors: North-South corridor from Inter-State Bus Terminal (ISBT) to Gandhi Park and East-West corridor from Forest Research Institute (FRI) to Raipur.
The 8.52 km ISBT-Gandhi Park corridor will have a total of 10 stations, all elevated and will pass through important areas such as Sewla Kalan, ITI, Chamanpuri, Patthri Bagh, Railway Station, Court and Ghantaghar.
The 13.90-km FRI-Raipur corridor will have 15 stations and will pass through areas like Ballupur Chowk, IMA Blood Bank, Doon School, Malhotra Bazar, and Ghantaghar.
The project has already been approved by the Uttarakhand government, said officials from Uttarakhand Metro Rail Corporation (UKMRC) and is awaiting approval from the Central Government.
In the next phase, the metro will be extended to connect with the holy city of Haridwar-Rohsikesh.
Neo metro
Metro projects are capital intensive in nature. Due to high capital expenditure nature of the metro rail, MetroLite and MetroNeo have come up as alternatives to conventional metro rail.
MetroNeo is rubber-tyred electric coach powered by overhead traction system running on a road slab with an exclusive right of way, standard specification of which has been issued in November 2020.
It provides a similar experience and ease of travel in terms of comfort, convenience, safety, punctuality, reliability and environment-friendliness as that of a conventional metro system. This is suitable for tier-two cities and can be developed at a cost of about 25 per cent of conventional metro system.
Low capital cost of MetroNeo is attributed to much lighter civil structure due to lesser axle load (10 ton), absence of track and signalling, open and simple station structure, and requirement of low power rated electrical equipments among other factors.
The 32 km long Nashik Metro Neo Project in Maharashtra is the country’s first Metro Neo project. The project having two corridors got Cabinet approval in March, 2021 and is expected to be completed in four years.