The Eastern Orbital Rail corridor will come up beyond the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE) and follow an elliptical route, allowing vehicles from UP to bypass Delhi for entering Haryana and beyond.
A committee headed by UP’s chief secretary earlier this week approved the alignment after studying a feasibility report submitted by Haryana Rail Infrastructure Development Corporation (HRIDC), the project’s implementing agency, last Dec. In the report, HRIDC proposed to either construct the corridor within the boundary of EPE, or beyond it.
A senior official from GDA, the nodal agency of the UP arm of the orbital road project, said population relocation concerns and the need for efficient multi-modal integration with existing railway networks, rapid rail, and freight corridors influenced the committee’s choice.
The orbital rail project, or Eastern Orbital Rail Corridor (EORC), is proposed to be Delhi’s third ring road and has been designed to facilitate passenger and freight movement within NCR without adding to the capital’s traffic or pollution. The EORC will connect Palwal in Haryana to Sonepat via Ghaziabad, Noida and Baghpat in UP.
“The committee found that acquiring land in areas beyond EPE will be easier, and the alignment would be relatively closer to the Indian Railway’s dedicated freight corridor. EORC is proposed to be connected with Namo Bharat’s Duhai depot,” the GDA official said.
The 1,856km Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor runs between Ludhiana in Punjab and Dankuni (near Kolkata) in West Bengal via Meerut and Kanpur in UP.
According to the draft, a 59km section of the 135km orbital rail project will fall in Ghaziabad. EORC is proposed to have nine stations in UP—New Kekhra Road, Badagaon, Manauli, Dasna, Sukhanapur, Rajatpur, Shamshudinpur, Bisaich, and Gunupura.
It will offer connectivity between NH-1, Faridabad and Sikri through Ghaziabad and Noida on the eastern side of NCR. The Western Peripheral Expressway from Kundli will link Faridabad, Palwal and Manesar. Significant progress was made on the orbital rail project in Haryana.
The orbital rail is a part of the NCR Planning Board’s 2041 regional plan. Officials said the need to expedite the project is necessary if the region is to emerge as a logistics hub in the future.
As per projection, five urban clusters in the NCR—Gurgaon-Manesar, Faridabad-Ballabgarh, Meerut, Ghaziabad, and NoidaGreater Noida-Kasna—will become megacities by 2032.
