Just days ahead of the announcement of dates for the General Elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi criss-crossed Uttar Pradesh on Friday inaugurating a number of projects including the Civil Terminal at Hindon Airport in Ghaziabad and the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS), among others.
According to him, the Hindon Airport will enable the residents of and around Ghaziabad to take flights from the Civil Terminal itself and need not go to the Indira Gandhi International airport in Delhi.
From this airport, travellers can take flights to Nashik in Maharashtra; Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand; Kannur in Kerala; Hubli in Karnataka; Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh; Shimla in Himachal Pradesh; Jamnagar in Gujarat; and Kalaburgi (Gulbarga) in Karnataka.
The Hindon Airport was launched under the government’s Regional Connectivity Scheme, UDAN, a flagship project of the Ministry of Aviation. The objective of the project is to provide affordable flying options in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.
IndiGo Airlines, Heritage Aviation, Ghodawat Airlines and TurboAirlines are expected to operate from this airport. The airfares are capped to Rs. 2,500 per hour of flight to Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.
Meanwhile, the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System is expected to reduce the travel time between Delhi and Meerut considerably. This project would include a Rapid Rail corridor, a 82-km stretch between Delhi and Meerut. Both rapid rail and Meerut Metro will run on this corridor.
The speed of operation of the RRTS would be 160 km per hour with an average speed of 100 km per hour.
The RRTS corridor will start from Sarai Kale Khan in New Delhi to Modipuram in Meerut and pass through Anand Vihar, Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, Muradnagar and Modinagar in Uttar Pradesh.
The Meerut Metro, which will also run on this corridor, will have 12 stations situated on a stretch of 18 kilometre between Modipuram and Meerut South. The stations will mostly be elevated, while some stations located in high density areas will be underground.
Modi also inaugurated the Red Line of Metro connecting Shaheed Sthal (New Bus Adda) in Ghaziabad to Dilshad Garden of the Delhi Metro.
