Tughlaqabad: Down Under, A Four-Level Metro Station

By 2025, south Delhi will have got a new transport hub in Delhi Metro’s Tughlaqabad interchange station. The station of the upcoming Silver Line (Tughlaqabad-Aerocity) will facilitate the interchange with the existing Tughlaqabad station of the Violet Line (Kashmere Gate-Raja Nahar Singh) and will be the second in the network to feature an underground parking facility.

A Delhi Metro Rail Corporation spokesperson said that the construction of the underground sections of the 23.6-km Silver Line will start this year. “The tenders were awarded this month after necessary approvals from the Japan International Cooperation Agency,” the spokesperson said.

The Silver Line, comprising 15 stations, will connect the existing Airport Express Line with the Violet Line. “While the existing station at Tughlaqabad is elevated, the new station will be underground and a subway will connect the two adjoining stations through the paid area,” the spokesperson said.

The new station has been designed as a four-level underground structure with the platform at the bottom level at an approximate depth of 23 metres. Above the platform level is the concourse and then an entire floor for parking above it. The roof will be level with the ground surface.

“The underground parking facility will accommodate around 200 vehicles. It will have direct access via lifts, stairs and escalators to both the Violet and Silver line stations,” he said. Tughlaqabad will be the first ever interchange facility of Delhi Metro to have an underground parking facility and only the second station after Dhansa Bus Stand on the Grey line (Najafgarh-Dhansa Bus Stand) to have such a provision.

A subway is to be constructed to connect the new and the old Tughlaqabad stations. It will be less than 100 metres in length and will provide quick transit facilities to the passengers from one corridor to the other.

“After the opening of this new line, passengers from farflung areas in Faridabad, Haryana, will save time getting down at the Tughlaqabad interchange and avail the direct connectivity to the domestic airport,” the DMRC official said. “At present, the commuters on the Violet Line have to reach Central Secretariat and then take the Airport Express Line to reach the domestic and international airport terminals, taking around an hour and half for the trip. ”

The construction of the priority corridor is expected to be completed by 2025 and the spokesperson said the preliminary mobilisation has been started and preparations are on to start the construction work.

The Aerocity-Tughlaqabad corridor will have four elevated stations and 11 underground stations. Apart from the Tughlaqabad station, the corridor will have interchange facilities at three other stations: Aerocity, Chhatarpur and Saket G Block. “The Tughlaqabad station, being a terminal station of the new corridor, will also be connected to the existing Sarita Vihar depot via a tunnel,” the spokesperson said, adding that the

Sarita Vihar depot, which currently only caters to the trains of the Violet Line, is being expanded to accommodate the Silver Line trains.

DMRC initially planned to construct a train depot over 77 acres at Rangpuri Pahadi near Vasant Kunj for the trains running on the Silver Line. However, since the corridor passes through the southern Ridge, DMRC looked at alternatives, aiming to reduce the impact of constructing the new corridor on the green lungs of Delhi. As the construction of the depot might have resulted in the felling of around 8,000 trees on the land earmarked for it, DMRC dropped the plan to build a depot altogether. Instead it opted to extend the Silver Line beyond the terminal station at Tughlaqabad upto the Sarita Vihar depot.

TN to restore 100 wetlands in five-year period

Tamil Nadu government has come up with a mission to restore 100 wetlands across the state in five years, Madras high court was informed.

Steps will also be taken to improve the livelihood of communities dependent on the wetlands, the state said. The submissions were made in response to a suomotu PIL proceedings initiated by the high court in view of a Supreme Court direction instructing all high courts to initiate such proceedings and take steps to conserve wetlands across the respective states.

When the plea came up for hearing before the first bench of Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy, member-secretary of Tamil Nadu Wetland Authority Deepak Srivastava filed a report to the court submitting that the state has announced first of its kind ‘Tamil Nadu Wetland Mission’.

As part of the mission, 100 wetlands have been identified from 141 prioritized wetlands list pertaining to the state prepared by the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Nature History, he said.

It was further added that ecological restoration of the identified 100 wetlands mandatorily requires to be notified under the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules. Therefore, the state requested the court for four weeks' time to prepare an appropriate draft proposal for the notification which would be forwarded to the union government.

Cops will now probe all road crashes

The government has made it mandatory for police to investigate all road accident cases that occur on and after April 1 and also ordered that cops will have to intimate about accidents to motor accident claim tribunals and insurance firms within 48 hours. The road transport ministry has made it mandatory for incorporation of validated mobile numbers in the insurance certificates. The rules, aimed at faster disposal of cases and quick disbursal of compensations, have set the mandatory procedure for investigation of road accidents, preparation of detailed accident reports, and fixing timelines for different stakeholders for quick settlement of claims by the MACT.

As per the notification, the police will have to visit the accident spots, collect evidence and intimate to the MACT about the accidents so that the process starts quickly. The investigation officer will be duty bound to inform the victims or their legal representatives about their rights and claims.

The changes have been made following a Delhi HC order which had directed the Centre to adopt the model, which has been successfully done in Delhi. This has drastically cut the time period for getting the compensation. The rules have specified the responsibility and timeline that all the stakeholders to give the medicolegal and postmortem reports.

Soon vehicles will have one more sticker on the windscreen to display their “fitness” status. Currently, all four wheelers and above category of vehicles have the mandatory FASTag on their screens and the ones in Delhi have one more — colour-coded sticker indicating the fuel type. In a draft notification, the road transport and highways ministry has proposed mentioning the details of validity of fitness (in format DD-MM-YYYY) and registration number of the vehicle. Sources said this is aimed at better enforcement as displaying such details will help detect vehicles with expired fitness test certificates.Moreover, the vehicle failing in a fitness test will  be the only condition for phasing out or scrapping old ones from road and records as well.

Gujarat: Keshod airport to start operations after 21 years

After 21 years, the Keshod airport near Asiatic lion’s abode Gir, will start commercial operations.

On March 12, union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia will inaugurate the new airport and flag off the first flight to Mumbai.

The announcement of making this airport operational was made in 2018 but was delayed pending some approval with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

The Keshod airport has been developed under the revival of airports scheme of the government of India at the cost of Rs 25 crore. Alliance Air, under regional connectivity scheme -UDAN will start the operations.

Keshod airport director P L Prasanna said, “A 72-seater Mumbai-Keshod-Mumbai flight will be operational from March 12. We are planning one more flight to Ahmedabad once the re-carpeting work of the runway there is completed. ”

He added that the Airports Authority of India has obtained all the regulatory approvals and licences to start scheduled flights. The terminal is capable of handling 75 passengers at a time.

Sasan-Gir, the last abode of Asiatic lions, is 50 km from Keshod. The flight connectivity is expected to boost tourism in Sasan as well as Gir National Park. At present, tourists coming from other states have to land at Rajkot airport and then undertake a 3-4 hours road journey to Sasan.

Junagadh, 35 km from Keshod, too is being developed as a historical city and after commencement of the ropeway at Girnar mountain, the number of tourists has increased manifold. The tourist influx to Somnath temple is also expected to rise as it is just 55 km from Keshod.

Keshod airport is spread over 450 acres of land. This airport was constructed by the last ruler of Junagadh Nawab Mahabat Khan. Praduman Khachar, head of department of history at Dr. Subhash Mahila Arts and Commerce college, Junagadh said, “The airport was built in 1945 and inaugurated in 1947. Nawab himself had to flee using this airport to Pakistan within a couple of months of inauguration when this princely state was unified with independent India.”

HC rejects Andhra’s plan for 3 capital cities

The Andhra Pradesh high court ruled that the state government does not have legislative competence to pass any resolution or law for change of capital or bifurcating or trifurcating the capital city.

The YSRC government headed by Jagan Mohan Reddy had dropped the plan to develop Amaravati as the capital city after coming to office in 2019 and decided to have three capitals -Amaravati, Visakhapatnam, and Kurnool.

The court, however, directed the state government and the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority to complete town planning schemes according to the Amaravati capital city master plan within six months.

The judges held that only Parliament had the powers to enact legislation on a state capital. Applying the "doctrine of living tree" and previous judgements of the Supreme Court, the high court said the legislature, executive, and judiciary are part and parcel of the "supplemental, incidental or consequential provisions" employed in Article 4 of the Constitution and that Parliament alone is competent to undertake such exercise, not the state legislature.

Interestingly, the Centre has notified Amaravati as the capital of Andhra Pradesh and represented it as such in the latest map by the Survey of India.

The state government and the APCRDA were directed to complete infrastructure development and basic amenities. These include roads, electricity, drainage and other facilities within one month after the order.

Reliance buys majority in Sanmina SCI India

Reliance Industries, India’s largest company in terms of market value, has agreed to acquire 50.1% in Sanmina SCI India for Rs 1,670 crore ($221 million), strengthening its play in electronics manufacturing. The remaining 49.9% will continue to be held by the US-listed Sanmina.

Reliance, through its 100% arm Reliance Strategic Business Ventures, will subscribe to new shares issued by Sanmina SCI to gain an ownership in the company, which has a 100-acre hitech manufacturing campus in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. In the same state, Reliance has a manufacturing facility in Sriperumbudur that makes the JioPhone and components for it. Likewise, it has a facility in the adjoining state of Andhra Pradesh (Tirupati).

While Reliance and Sanmina will initially focus on Chennai campus, both will look at new manufacturing sites in the country over time, based on business needs. The day-to-day business will continue to be managed by the existing team of Sanmina SCI, which raked in a revenue of Rs 1,230 crore ($165 million) in fiscal 2021, the two companies said.

In recent years, Reliance has moved away from traditional oil business by building new industries such as retail and telecom. It is currently switching to clean energy by investing across solar, batteries and hydrogen. Its M&A, expected to be completed by September, comes as India pushes for more investment in manufacturing to establish itself as an electronics production hub. Sanmina SCI will make hardware for will make hardware for 5G communications, cloud infra, medsystems, defence, aerospace and clean tech.

Don’t depend on imports : PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a fervent pitch for pushing domestic manufacturing and lowering dependence on imports, citing supply disruptions due to heightened geo-political risks and the Covid-19 pandemic. Addressing a post-Budget webinar, Modi flagged EVs, semiconductors, medical devices and speciality steel, and argued for shunning unwanted imports so that value addition and job creation could take place in India. He also invoked national security.

“Atmanirbharta (self sufficiency) is all the more important if we see from the prism of national security,” he said. “It is a losing proposition if you export raw material and import manufactured goods made with them. If a country like India is only a market (for foreign goods), then it can never progress nor give opportunities to the youth. During the pandemic, we are seeing how supply chains have been destroyed. When challenges come before us, need for Make-in-India increases,” he said.

The defence ministry offered four government-funded design and development projects to the Indian industry, which includes a light tank for the Army, as well as five other industry-funded projects. The other three government-funded development of projects under ‘Make-I’ category of the Defence Acquisition Procedure are communication equipment , airborne electro optical pods and airborne stand-off jammers, all for the IAF.