Delhi Metro’s HUDA City Centre Renamed to Include Shalimar
Picking up from where they left off last year, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has now officially renamed Huda City Centre Metro Station – the 49 km Yellow Line’s southern terminal in Gurgaon to ‘Shalimar HUDA City Centre’. This is after Shalimar Paints which is HQ’d in Gurgaon’s Sector 44 and calls itself “India’s oldest paints company” placed the highest bid to win the semi-naming rights from the DMRC for a period of 10 years.
The DMRC’s semi naming initiative is being carried out over 2 phases and includes renaming 17 stations across the National Capital Region (not including Delhi). It was initiated to allow them to generate some extra revenue in the absence of a fare-revision since 2009 and gives corporates the opportunity to promote their brand by refurbishing station interiors & exteriors in the brand’s theme and setting up advertisement spaces of 500 sq m. within the stations.
HUDA City Centre station – Photo Copyright: Varun Shiv Kapur
Some images of tacky newly installed boards around the station:
Photo Copyright: Delhi Metro Travellers
Photo Copyright: Rukmani Awasthi
Photo Copyright: Yogesh Yadav
Phase 1 of Semi-Naming Exercise
The following stations on the Delhi Metro’s network were renamed last year after various companies bid for them. Click on a station’s name below to read & see how each station has been rebranded:
Blue Line in Noida & Ghaziabad
• Wave Sector-18 Noida
• Wave City Center Noida
• Jagran Vaishali
Yellow line in Gurgaon
• Indigo Guru Dronacharya
• SYSKA MG Road
• Shalimar HUDA City Centre (this post!)
Orange line in Delhi
• ONGC Shivaji Stadium
The DMRC did not receive bids for the IFFCO Chowk and Botanical Garden stations, so they re-introduced them in Phase 2.
Phase 2 of Semi-Naming Exercise
The DMRC invited bids for the following 10 stations on February 5 2016 and is expected to award their contracts very soon.
• Yellow line in Gurgaon – IFFCO Chowk
• Blue line in Noida – Botanical Garden, Golf Course, Noida Sector 15, Noida Sector 16
• Violet line in Faridabad – Sarai, NHPC Chowk, Badkal Mor, Neelam Chowk Ajronda and Mewala Maharajpur
As a reminder, Gurgaon’s Rapid Metro was the first operator in the country which offered semi naming rights. Some of the stations on its 5.1 km line are called Indusind Bank Cybercity, Vodafone Belvedere Towers and Micromax Moulsari Avenue. Following Gurgaon & Delhi’s example, the Noida Metro Rail Corporation in December 2014 announced that they will similarly auction the station naming rights along the 30 km Noida – Greater Noida metro line prior to it opening in late 2017. In January 2016, the Kochi Metro announced a similar proposal to allow corporates to bid on prefixing their brand’s name to the station’s actual name.
For more updates on the Delhi Metro, check out the Delhi section of The Metro Rail Guy!
– TMRG
“Tacky” is the word! What percentage of operating costs are defrayed by auctioning off semi-naming rights to private corporate interests? 1%?
A very small percentage, even lower than 1%. Estd. revenue from each station on an average is Rs 2 crore/annum, so for all 17, they’ll make about 34 crores each year. As per their annual report from 2014-15, they made Rs 3562 crores and spent Rs 3837 crores on operations, so it’s really a drop in the ocean.
Hello Metrorailguy,
Its Gurugram now. Correction needed in Phase 1: Semi-Naming exercise & Phase 2: Semi-Naming exercise;
Giving contract for 10 years is a bit lengthy. Should be for 5 yrs only