History of Delhi Metro’s ITO – Kashmere Gate Heritage Line

With less than 24 hours to go for the launch of Delhi Metro’s 5.17 km ITO – Kashmere Gate underground section of the 43.4 km Violet Line, here’s a post with some brief, high-level information on the line’s history. I’ve divided its timeline up into 3 distinct periods which’ll help demonstrate how much time was spent on each activity.

Popularly known as the Heritage Line, this section is overall a part of the 160 km Phase 3 project’s 9.37 km northern extension of the Violet Line. Other sections opened up in June 2014 (Central Secretariat – Janpath – Mandi House, 3.03 km) and June 2015 (Mandi House – ITO, .972 km). This last section of the line was originally scheduled to open up in December 2015 but ran into two major issues:

1) Discovery of what is said to be an old mosque while excavating the site for the Jama Masjid Station. Locals claimed it was demolished by the British after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and soon after took over a part of the site & built a brick structure resembling it. This forced the DMRC to change the station’s site and redraw the tunnels’ alignment to pass underneath weak residential structures at Kalan Mahal instead of Netaji Subash Marg. During the TBM drives, the DMRC had to twice re-accommodate around 2000 residents to nearby hotels.

2) One of the Mitsubishi TBMs damaged its cutterhead midway and broke down between Jama Masjid and Delhi Gate. This forced the contractor to build a mid-shaft opposite Golcha Cinema in Daryaganj and launch a ‘rescue’ TBM from the Delhi Gate-end to build the rest of the tunnel.

This section consists of two civil packages:

• CC-05 – Mandi House – Jama Masjid: 3.6 km with 3 new stations at ITO, Delhi Gate and Jama Masjid
• CC-07 – Jama Masjid – Kashmere Gate: 2.8 km with 2 new stations at Lal Quila and Kashmere Gate

Pre-Tunneling Period (2011-2013)

Q3 2011 – Delhi Metro Rail Corporation invited global ICB bids for the construction of CC-05 in August 2011, and for CC-07 in September 2011.

Q1 2012 – Package CC-05 was awarded to L&T-SUCG JV with a contract value of Rs. 718.87 crores on January 23, while package CC-07 was awarded to the Metrostroy-Era JV with a contract value of Rs. 559.90 crores on March 6.

Tunneling Period (2013-2016)

• For CC-05, L&T-SUCG JV deployed 3 TBMs to make 5 breakthroughs (+2 breakthroughs in 2013 on the Mandi House – ITO section which opened up on June 8 2015):
TBM-1: Mitsubishi
TBM-2: Mitsubishi
TBM-3: STEC-3
The Mitsubishi TBMs were launched from Mandi House towards Delhi Gate, and then from Jama Masjid to Delhi Gate. The STEC-3 ‘rescue’ TBM was launched from Delhi Gate to the Golcha mid-shaft to build the remaining portion of the up-line tunnel.

• For CC-07, Metrostroy-Era JV deployed 2 mixed/rock EPB TBMs to make 4 breakthroughs:
TBM-1: Terratec (S23)
TBM-2: Terratec (S24)
These TBMs were launched from Jama Masjid towards Lal Quila, and then again from Kashmere Gate towards Lal Quila

Timeline:

• March 2014– L&T-SUCG’s TBM-1 arrived at Delhi Gate from ITO (down-line)

• June 2014 – L&T-SUCG’s TBM-2 arrived at Delhi Gate from ITO (up-line)

• July 31, 2014 – Metrostroy-Era’s TBM S23 arrived at Lal Quila from Jama Masijd (down-line tunnel)

• December 2014 – Metrostroy-Era’s TBM S24 arrived at Lal Quila from Jama Masijd (up-line tunnel)

• August 3, 2015 – Metrostroy-Era’s TBM S23 arrived at Lal Quila from Kashmere Gate (up-line tunnel) – more details

• February 4, 2015 – Metrostroy-Era’s TBM S24 arrived at Lal Quila from Kashmere Gate (down-line tunnel) – more details

• December, 2015 – L&T-SUCG’s TBM-1 arrived at the Golcha mid-shaft from Jama Masjid (up-line tunnel)

– no breakthrough image is available at this time. The damaged TBM was extracted after sitting at this spot for a little more than a year.

• February 9, 2016 – L&T-SUCG’s STEC-3 arrived at the Golcha mid-shaft from Delhi Gate (up-line tunnel) – more details

• March 11, 2016 – Final TBM breakthrough by L&T-SUCG’s TBM-2 TBM at Delhi Gate from Jama Masjid (down-line) – more details

Post-Tunneling Period (2016-2017)

Trial runs on this section were launched from the ITO Station in August 2016 and an independent safety assessor (ISA) conducted an inspection of the signalling system in late-March 2017. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation submitted its application to the CMRS in April following which a 2-day inspection was conducted on May 22-23.

For 20+ brilliant images from inside the stations showcasing artwork and new AFC “dream gates”, check out this post.

Did I miss out on anything? Looking forward to this section’s inauguration at 10 am and public launch at 12 noon tomorrow! 😀

For more updates, check out the Delhi section of The Metro Rail Guy!

– TMRG