With the NCR Planning Board having sent financial models for the Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) to state governments for approval, the Delhi government has raised objections to the RRTS entering the city. The Delhi government has said the transport system should be limited to the outskirts of the city to avoid “congestion problems.” A meeting in this regard was also held at the L-G’s office recently, but no decision has been reached yet. Work on three of the corridors, Delhi-Gurgaon-Alwar, Delhi-Sonepat-Panipat and Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut, is expected to start early next year, and the Ministry of Urban Development aims to complete the work by 2016. These links are expected to provide fast and reliable connectivity to those districts in UP, Haryana and Rajasthan, which have been identified as major contributors to Delhi’s increasing migrant population. As per the original plans, while the Delhi-Sonepat-Panipat corridor will end near Kashmere Gate, the Delhi-Gurgaon-Alwar line is supposed to be extended till Dhaula Kuan, and the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut corridor will end near Sarai Kale Khan. “If these RRTS corridors, which will be underground, are allowed to be extended till the heart of the city, it will not only lead to chaos but will also add to congestion. There is no commercial viability in such a plan also, as there is hardly any space in Delhi to develop office spaces and shops along this line. So we do not see the point of extending the line to the heart of the city,” said a government official. The government is reportedly of the view that RRTS corridors will substantially increase the number of people entering the city, thereby increasing the load on the city’s infrastructure, which is already falling short. Urban Development Ministry officials said certain concerns had been raised by Delhi government, and they hoped to resolve these “amicably”. The officials said the project report on the RRTS might be re-visited in light of the recent objections. Sources in the L-G’s office, meanwhile, said that while they prefer to extend the corridors till Delhi, there are many issues that need to be looked into before a final decision is taken. “Issues concerning the impact of extending these corridors till the heart of the city need to be studied. Besides this, there are other issues concerning cost of the project and ensuring proper integration of these corridors with other modes of transport. While we prefer that the corridors are extended till Delhi, all this will have to be studied in detail before we reach a final conclusion in this matter,” a source said. Meanwhile, Urban Development officials say that besides cutting down travel time between Delhi and cities like Panipat and Meerut, another advantage of extending the line till Delhi is that it would help promote integration of multi-modal transport systems.