Metro Pink Line: Karkardooma station to be 2nd highest from ground level

New Delhi, Oct 29 (IANS) Just two days away from inauguration, the new Pink Line section's Karkardooma station, at a height of 21 metres above the ground, will be the second highest Metro station on the entire network.

The Dhaula Kuan station, also on the Pink Line, is erected 23 metres above the ground. 

The Pink Line's 18-km Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake-Shiv Vihar Metro section will be opened for public on Wednesday afternoon. It will be formally inaugurated by Union Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. 

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation said that constructing the segment that high was "never an easy task", yet it achieved it without disturbing the existing operations at Blue Line (Vaishali/Anand Vihar-Dwarka), which it crosses.

"Construction of crossing over of Metro viaduct at the existing Karkardooma Metro station was never an easy task for the metro engineers. It posed numerous challenges to the engineers throughout the project, as this is one of the highest crossings of the metro project," the corporation said. 

The Pink Line will be above 10 meters from the existing Blue Line, it said. 

The DMRC also cited a high number of 'sharp curves' it had to face while constructing this section of the line, forcing it to construct as many as 10 such curves along the section because of "twists and turns". A few of these curves were constructed in congested areas like I.P. Extension, Anand Vihar, Welcome, Seelampur, Jaffrabad and Maujpur. 

After this stretch, only the section connecting Lajpat Nagar-Mayur Vihar Pocket 1, remains to be opened on the Pink Line. The DMRC had earlier said that this section will be opened by December. 

Once operational, the entire 59-km Pink Line will connect Shiv Vihar in east Delhi to Majlis Park in north. 

The stretch connecting Majlis park to Lajpat Nagar in south Delhi was opened earlier in the year in two phases.