DMRC to add 10 trains for Gurgaon, Noida

With the aim of providing greater connectivity to the capital city prior to the Commonwealth Games in 2010, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) will acquire 40 new coaches for its second phase of expansion in Gurgaon and Noida.

These 40 coaches are part of the deal inked between DMRC and Bombardier Transportation for the supply of 340 coaches.

The coaches will help DMRC add 10 new trains in the next 20-24 months in addition to the 62 trains currently under operation in Delhi.

However, the trains will only be able to come into operation once the stretch in Gurgaon and Noida are completed. Earlier this year, DMRC had promised that the Gurgaon stretch of metro should become operational by end-2009 or January 2010.

DMRC is said to have paid Rs 2,500 crore to the Bombardier for the deal under which, the coaches would be delivered between mid-2009 and March 2010. For Bombardier, the Canadian transportation giant, this is its first deal with DMRC.

When metro services had started in Delhi in 2002, the initial coaches had arrived from South Korea, while later through technology transfer, they were manufactured in India.

Sources say that the first batch of 10 trains (with four coaches each), would come from the Bombardier's units in Germany and Sweden. The remaining coaches would be manufactured in their Hyderabad unit in India.

The coaches will have stainless steel bodies, with world-class propulsion system. The cost of each coach would come to around Rs 7.35 crore. Bombardier is one of world's top suppliers of metro coaches and more than 1,400 of its coaches, are used in metro systems of cities like London, New York, Paris and China.

Delhi Metro currently has 62 trains that carries more than 3 lakh on a daily basis on its 65 km long network. Under phase II, 118 km of network would be added to the existing one and the metro services would reach Noida and Gurgaon.