1.5-km stretch between Hitec City and Raidurg to be thrown open to public commute tomorrow

Hyderabad Metro Rail will achieve yet another landmark on Friday, when the 1.5-km last-mile stretch between Hitec City station and Raidurg terminal station (Mindspace junction) is thrown open for public commute.

With this, Corridor III between Nagole and Raidurg (28 km) will be completed fully but there will be 23 stations instead of the earlier planned 24 stations as the authorities have quietly decided to drop the proposed Cyber Gateway station between Hitec City and Raidurg!

It was considered to be “too short a distance” to the terminal station and Hi-Tec City station, yet it also means the distance between two stations will be the highest here as there is a station for almost every kilometre elsewhere, say senior officials.

Raidurg stretch too could have been ready along with Hitec City station in March last year if not for the government, through the GHMC, asking L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad (L&TMRH) to halt the work on 49 pillars and 21 spans to facilitate building an underpass and the flyover nearby.

Incidentally, Corridor III destination was moved from Shilparamam to Raidurg after metro rail officials realised that they would have had to build the terminal station at a water body. L&TMRH was given 15 acres at the changed site for real estate development.

Their biggest mall was supposed to be built here but construction has not begun, they point out.

Due to this alignment change, the Corridor III viaduct instead of jumping over the existing flyover after Hitec City and landing opposite Shilparamam, was forced to turn left of Cyber Towers and move towards Mindspace junction.

Still, construction was fraught with more challenges due to heavy traffic movement.

Delay in construction till Raidurg meant metro rail engineers had to come out with an inventive ‘reversal’ mode of building the overhead viaduct up to 650 metres beyond Hitec city station to enable trains take a reverse and return. “We could have got reversal ready by March last year if not for restrictions on construction due to heavy traffic,” insist senior officials.

It led to another novel method of running trains on parallel lines from Jubilee Hills Check Post to Hitec City and return in a slow pace for five months till August. Good frequency happened after the reversal came into force and the passenger count crossed the four lakh mark in the two commissioned corridors.

But, there is no depot at Raidurg so how will trains reverse?

Trains will reverse tracks a short distance away from the terminal station, disclosed Hyderabad Metro Rail MD N.V.S. Reddy.