NCR sets to get rapid rail system

The Ministry of Urban Affairs has recently signed a technical cooperation agreement with Spanish firm Administrator de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias to build a rapid rail system in the national capital region (NCR). As per the agreement, India will get technical cooperation from Spain to design and execute RRTS—a first-of-its-kind project in the country with a designated speed of 180 km/h. The offshore company is a state-owned railway infrastructure builder with experience in planning, developing, constructing, operating and maintaining high-speed railway and regional rail systems like Cercanias‘ in Madrid, concerned minister said that the agreement will pave the way for technical advice on specific issues, besides providing training and collaboration in technical areas such as track structure, signaling system, rolling stock, safety, multi-modal integration and station design. Three RRTS corridors including Delhi-Meerut Smart Line, Delhi-Panipat Smart Line and Delhi-Alwar Smart Line have been prioritized for implementation in the first phase. Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut corridor will be the first corridor to be implemented, for which pre-construction activities including geo-technical investigation, detailed design, utility-shifting planning and traffic diversion planning are currently in full swing.