Delhi’s 'Parikarma' Rail and Metro. Who's winning?

  

  With infants playing on tracks and encroachments getting closer, Hazrat Nizamuddin (NZN) Parikarma EMU crosses through Dayabasti, one of the few stations on Delhi’s “Ring Rail” network. Passing through some busy stations like New Delhi, Tilak Bridge, Kirti Nagar and Patel Nagar, this train operates twice a day, at 8 am and at 4:45 am from HZN and comes back to HZN itself doing “Parikarma.” The Delhi ring rail has a network of 21 stations and fetches around 4000 commuters daily.

  For an adventurous ride, I boarded the EMU from Lodi Colony Station near INA Market. In the times of online ticket booking, I received a ticket on hardboard. Nostalgia? Yes! For a second, I went back like Sands of time. More than a decade back travelled from Karnal to Panipat in Rs 5 with the same ticket.    

 “Metro fares are really high now, the train is affordable. Earlier there used to be two more trains in the evening, but now there is only one train for office commuters. I fadely remember Mamta Banerjee being railway minister cancelled the two trains permanently” said Mahipal, travelling to Narayana from his office near Lodhi Colony station.

   Standing next to him is Suresh who is not a daily commuter but agrees it is convenient and cheap. “I don’t need to interchange here, but to travel in metro I need to take a bus for metro station leading to double expense. This track was originally laid down for carrying goods” he said. 

 Crossing some posh areas like Sarojini Nagar and Safdarjung, the train enters one of Delhi's "undisclosed green cover" beyond Chankyapuri. Picturesque Aravalli mountains, low-lying green platforms and a fragment of cool breeze, will surely freshen up your soul. Next station is Brar Square, the historical zone under Delhi Cantonment, where bodies of our martyrs were kept during the Kargil War in 1999. Beyond this, you will witness, what ideally Indian Railway is known for: waste.

  

  
 Delhi has 35 km of the ring rail network that criss-crosses the 231-km Metro network at several locations. But due to lack of planning, the link between the Metro and rail systems has not been established. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal in an interview said, “Delhi being in the heart of country, four railways come through Delhi. So the whole Delhi network is clogged like crazy. (With the bypass), whichever train that doesn’t have to come to Delhi will bypass it.” Goyal added that the integrated network, coupled with Metro interchanges, can make 50% of cars go off the roads”. 

Another daily commuter, Yogendra Chauhan from Haryana’s Faridabad said, “This train used to do round twice but the morning round is no more operational. Now, I’ve to catch a bus in the morning and travel back home by this train. It’s not practical to board a bus, reach station and then to the office, so I take a direct bus.” Travelling from Naraina to Tughlakabad, where he works at a censor manufacturing unit, he said aggressively that, “The rise in metro fair increased the load in DTC. This is unfair how metro fair was almost doubled; they should have increased in instalments atleast. Stations on this ring network have poor road connectivity. You’ve to walk for 20 minutes to board a train. The reason why DTC is overloaded is commuters can pay 15 rupees for the bus rather than paying separately for different modes of transport.”

On daily ridership, he replied, “Rise in metro fair didn’t increase ridership here in local. It was already moderately crowded by daily passengers from Rohtak side. Only because of these people, this train is working! Most of them are employed in companies around the stations.”

Siddhanta Mishra, a journalist with The New Indian Express, wrote: The foremost problem faced by the network, according to the communiqué, is land encroachment — stations opening to narrow, dirty alleyways — often more than a kilometer away from the main road.
According to northern railway officials, proposal to construct two fresh lines by removing the encroachment near the railway tracks and developing commercial structures is underway. For commercial use of land and to integrate the ring road network with the Delhi Metro, stations in business centres like Kishanganj, Patel Nagar, Naraina Vihar, Sarojni Nagar, Safdurjung, Lodhi Colony and Lajpat Nagar have been identified.  According to officials, the area around these stations will be developed commercially and hotels, restaurants, hospitals, shops, parlours, games parlours and residential complexes would be constructed.

(Images and Text: Bhavey)