Ahmedabad Metro’s Phase 2 to Gandhinagar Inaugurated
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi today inaugurated a 20.8 km section of the 28.25 km Ahmedabad Metro Phase 2 project from an event held at Gandhinagar’s Sector-1 Station.
This new elevated line extends Ahmedabad Metro’s 18.52 km Red Line by 15.4 km from Motera Stadium Station to the southern part of Gujarat’s capital Gandhinagar with 6 new stations at GNLU, Raysan, Randesan, Dholakuva Circle, Infocity and Sector 1. In addition, a small 5.4 km elevated spur (branch) line has been built to connect GNLU with GIFT City with 2 new stations at PDPU and GIFT City.
Ahmedabad Metro’s Phase 2 will open for commercial services for passengers on September 17 (Tuesday). This exciting development comes less than 4 years (3 years 10 months to be precise) after its first construction contract was awarded thanks to a mostly uninterrupted right-of-way through suburban urbanscape.
The line’s 6.478 km viaduct from GNLU to Sector-1 with 5 stations was built by Ranjit Buildcon (RBL) as part of Package C2 which was awarded in November-2020. RBL had launched the final of 354 U-girders in October 2023.
The line’s 8.12 km viaduct from Motera Stadium to GNLU (main-line) and 5.4 km GNLU to GIFT City spur was built by Afcons Infrastructure as part of Package C1 which was awarded in December 2021. Afcons had launched their final of 574 U-girders for C1 in February 2024.
A list of all Ahmedabad Metro Phase 2 contractors can be viewed here.
The line consists two cool & notable features from a civil engineering perspective – an 810m long bridge over Sabarmati River west of GIFT City and a 303m long extradosed bridge over Narmada Canal.
Gujarat Metro Rail Corporation (GMRC) had first started trial runs using their 3-coach Hyundai Rotem trains between Dholakuva and GNLU in February 2024, and then extended testing between GNLU and GIFT City in March 2024.
The construction of 7 stations between Motera Stadium – GNLU, part of Afcons Infrastructure’s Package C1, were off to a late start due to different civil construction tendering schedules between packages C1 & C2, and will be opened up at a later time as each one of them gets ready.
GMRC had adopted a similar approach in Phase 1 and skipped stations that were not ready in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
I expect the line’s 3rd and final section between Sector-1 and Mahatma Mandir, which lies entirely within Gandhinagar city, to open up no sooner than Q1 2026. That section’s construction as part of Package C3 was awarded to Dilip Buildcon in October 2022, even later than C1, and they in turn subcontracted works to Ranjit Buildcon.
Here are some snaps shot over the past week shared by @airnewsalerts on X:
GMRC hasn’t released their train frequency plan, but it will likely be low with headways of 10 minutes or greater, similar to existing headways on Phase 1 of the Red Line (APMC – Motera Stadium).
Per GMRC’s press release, train services from Sector-1 Station to Motera Stadium Station will initially operate from 7:20 am to 6:40 pm. Trains will be operated between GNLU and GIFT City between 8:20 am to 6:25 pm, while trains from GIFT City to GNLU will run from 7:18 am to 6:38 pm.
Inauguration Video
With this development, the Red Line has become 39.22 km long (APMC – Sector 1), while Ahmedabad Metro’s overall network has become 58.66 km strong.
This makes it India’s 5th largest metro system behind Delhi Metro (351.2 km), Bangalore Metro (72.2 km), Hyderabad Metro (67 km), and just short of Kolkata Metro (58.68 km). It has now surpassed Nagpur Metro (38.2 km) and Chennai Metro (54.1 km) – see my quick snapshot of all metro systems over here.
Future plans for GMRC include building a 7.56 km circular route within GIFT City and a 5.56 km spur line to Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport as part of Phase 3.
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– TMRG
Hey TMRG,
It would have been better if you could have included some snaps of those Metro Stations which are not yet opened by GMRC (with a tentative opening date for each Station) in the latest inauguration event. GMRC’s decision is so strange!
It isn’t common bur both ahmedabad and nagpur have done this in the past.
And ir makes sense to provide service on the section that is ready to benefit people today instead of 6 months from now.
Recently even london did it with crossrail when one station in the middle wasn’t ready so trains skipped ir for months before it was ready
Hi, I haven’t come across any images of those remaining stations. Let me ask around.
is there any update for phase-2 rolling stock from titagarh?
Nope. Although it’s entirely possible that manufacturing activities have started by now, I haven’t seen or heard of that actually happening.
What weird timings. 7pm closing??? Do people in Ahmedabad not travel after sunset??
they don’t have enough metro trains to keep up for both phases hence low frequency and odd timings
phase 1 in Ahmedabad runs till 22:00