IJM on track to complete Delhi Metro Line project

IJM on track to complete Delhi Metro Line project
By Balan Moses
Published: 2009/01/28

A MALAYSIAN company is well on track towards completing a crucial part of the 19km New Delhi-Indra Gandhi Internatonal Airport Metro Line by next year. A Delhi Metro spokesman said IJM Corp Bhd, one of six foreign companies handling civil projects under Phase 2 of the Metro Line, was on schedule in complete its projects on the ultramodern network. Chief public relations officer Anuj Dayal said IJM was performing well along with British and Japanese companies contracted to complete civil projects on the state-of-the-art line. "IJM is doing a good job on its part in building the line to the airport. There are no problems at all," he said, adding that it will take just 18 minutes to cover the distance from Connaught Place in the city centre to the airport.

He said the company had met the stringent pre-qualifications for contractors bidding for the project. "It put in a bid along with other top contractors in the world and succeeded in winning a contract," he said in New Delhi recently.The airport line under the second phase of the Delhi Metro Line is expected to be completed in time for the 2010 Commonwealth Games expected to be held in New Delhi. The 440km Delhi Metro network carries 800,000 passengers a day with fares ranging between six rupees and 22 rupees - among the lowest in the world. Some of the lines under the RM7 billion first phase of the project run below buildings in the city centre that are up to 400 years old.

Dayal said the Delhi Metro had the tightest security system among similar networks in the world with every passenger frisked before entering stations and on leaving stations. "They also have to walk through metal detectors while entering stations and exiting them. The Delhi Metro is very high on the terrorist hit list and this is why we have such a tight security." The Delhi Metro has seen two bomb blasts since the project took off in December 2002 - both occurring just outside the entrance to stations.