Every day, millions of commuters in New Delhi experience frequent traffic jams and high pollution levels. To reach work, people use buses, two-wheelers or three-wheelers, or their own vehicles. All this contributes the ever-increasing traffic and pollution. Currently, bus service is the main mode of transportation in Delhi. However, the bus service alone cannot handle the growing commuters. Hence, Metro railway project was launched to reduce the pollution, heavy traffic and parking problems. It will provide Mass Rapid Transport System for the NCR.

The project is a joint venture of the Government of India (Ministry of Urban Affairs) and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. The Metro railway project was first sanctioned in 1950 and since then, many studies were carried out to find out its feasibility. The actual work began in 1998. The estimated cost of the total project is Rs. 10570 crore. The total length of the first phase of the project is 62 km, which is divided over 3 separate route lines, with 53 stations. The trains and the underground stations will be fully air-conditioned. Phase I is scheduled to be completed by December 2005.

Construction of the first route from Shahdara to Tis Hazari will be completed in December 2002. This will pass through the following stations: Shahdara, Welcome Colony, Seelampur, Gautampur, Shastri Park and Tis Hazari. The line from Tis Hazari to Tri Nagar will be completed by September 2003. The final stretches, from Tri Nagar to Rithala and from Rithala to Barwala will be completed by December 2003 and December 2004, respectively. At this stage, daily passengers are estimated at around 2 to 3 lakh.

Line 2 will be fully underground from Vishwa Vidyalaya to Inter State Bus Terminus (ISBT) and will be ready by December 2004, while ISBT to Central Secretariat will be completed by September 2005.

Line 3 will be a combination of underground, at grade and elevated lines, from Barakhamba Road to Dwarka. This will be completed by December 2005. The stations at Connaught Place and Barakhamba Road are underground, while Dwarka station will be at grade. Line 3 passes through the middle class residential and commercial areas of NCR. This will turn out to be the busiest route on the network. Finally, up to 2 million people are expected to use the system daily when the project is completed.

The metro system will give a boost to the real estate market. Based on the past history of such metro schemes all over the world and Kolkata, it does appear that the NCR Metro will have a positive impact on the real estate market along the routes. In Atlanta and Toronto, the residential and commercial land values along the underground rail corridors went up by 50%. In Washington DC, some properties registered as much as a 100% increase. Kolkata has witnessed 10-20% increase in land prices depending on factors like proximity to the subway station and parking available nearby and the connectivity to the other modes of transport. The much-talked about Delhi Metro Rail is set to not only improve the experience of two million commuters, but also to some extent, the prospects of the real estate industry. The NCR Metro is estimated to increase the prices along the routes by at least 15%. The first phase has at least 10 large residential and commercial catchment areas like Karol Bagh and Patel Nagar, hence the prices here may appreciate by 20%. If safe parking areas are made near the stations along the route, it is likely that more people will use the system and hence, reduce pollution to a large extent.

Since commuting time will be reduced substantially, many of the working people would not all want to live close to their places of work. In fact, this will reduce crowding in the CBD as well as inner parts of New Delhi. People will be willing to stay further away from the CBD and other business centers due to the ease of commuting by the Metro. This in turn will boost the real estate prices of residential properties in the vicinity of the planned Metro stations. On the northwest corridor, properties along Barwala Depot, Rohini and Pitampura and other stations will appreciate as the metro usage becomes widespread. There are 10 underground stations on the north-south corridor, which runs through the business areas of the city and hence, will impact the cost of commercial properties near these stations positively. But the 31 surface and elevated stations on the east west corridor will have a bigger appreciation impact on the properties. In fact, now people will be willing to stay as far away as Dwarka and Nangloi in the west and Shahdara on the east. Residential property rates will certainly increase near the stations along these routes. On the whole, the Metro will boost the prices of properties along the routes, which would otherwise have remained stable or come down in the long run.