Taking Lucknow on the ‘Fast Track’ of development

The ‘city of nawabs’ witnessed one of its most important development projects – Lucknow metro, September, this year. Inaugurated by minister of home affairs, Rajnath Singh and Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, the Lucknow metro promises to be the fastest completed metro in India

LUCKNOW: The 8th metro project of India, the Lucknow metro rail corporation (LMRC) was inaugurated by Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath on 5th September. “The smartness of Lucknow has increased after the launch of metro services here and it has become a Smart City”, said Yogi on the inauguration ceremony of LMRC.

The Lucknow metro plans to operate a 22.8-km-long North-South Corridor, from airport till MunshiPulia. The North-South Corridor with 21 stations, including eight elevated ones, has been termed as the “Priority Corridor”. Apart from this, the LMRC has an east-West corridor coming up, from Charbagh Railway station till Vasant Kunj, covering 11 km, including 6.3 km underground.

For now, the phase of LMRC that is open to public is the 8.5-km-long stretch from Transport Nagar to Charbagh. Part of the Phase 1 of the Lucknow Metro project, the stretch took around three years to complete. The estimated cost of Phase-1A is 6,928 crores, a joint venture of the State and Central governments.

According to the detailed Project report by LMRC, the daily expected ridership on the North-South corridor will be 6.44 lakh (year 2020), while for the east-West line it will be 2.43 lakh. The capacity of each six-coach train will be 1,574 passengers.

“In place of separate metro corporations, we will constitute an UP Metro Corporation to run the metro services in the state”, said Yogi. He also added that work on other phases of metro has already begun and will be completed soon. ‘Metro-man’ E. Sreedharan is the principal advisor of the Lucknow Metro.

With its own ‘Nawabi Andaaz’, the Lucknow metro will display Chikankari craftsmanship on its exteriors. The blending of black in front is inspired from the modern feel of Hazratganj, Lucknow’s main commercial hub in the heart of city. Name of stations will be displayed in Hindi, Urdu and English. The metro services will be open to the people from 6 am to 10 pm every day. The highest fare between two terminal stations being Rs.30.

In addition to it, Lucknow metro is the first metro in the country to have its own FM radio station along in collaboration with private radio station to provide information regarding metro safety as well as on and off board entertainment. This service aims for infotainment and monetary purpose. The metro will also be providing Wi-Fi to its passengers at each metro station. Wi-Fi service will be free for all the ‘Go Smart’ Card holders, which holds various other benefits as well.

State-owned SAIL reported that it has supplied around 20,000 tonnes of steel for the 8.5 km long priority stretch of the North-South Corridor of Lucknow Metro rail. SAIL has supplied reinforcement bars, structural steel and plates for this stretch and is ready to supply for the remaining stretch.

“Taking Lucknow on the fast track of development, Lucknow Metro is going to run like a dream through one end of the city to another. It is a major milestone achieved in the history of the heritage city. It will not be an exaggeration to say that from now onwards, the history of the city will be referred to as ‘before’ Metro & ‘After’ Metro,” said Mr. Kumar Keshav, Managing director, LMRC.

The LMRC was also awarded 2nd Place for ‘best Metro for Excellence in innovative Designs’ at 5th annual Metro rail Summit in New Delhi behind the Delhi Metro. It competed against the other metro projects of the country like Mumbai Metro and Jaipur Metro.