How metro dug deep to make space for Ashram station

It took out-of-the-box thinking to tide the problem of space confronting Delhi Metro Rail Corporation in the construction of the station at Ashram in south Delhi. DMRC came up with a unique design that incorporated an extra floor to accommodate passenger areas and utilities. And yet, the paucity of available land means the Ashram station is the smallest in the Delhi Metro network and possibly in the world, if DMRC officials are to be believed.

Located below one of the city’s busiest traffic junctions, the Ashram metro station is unique besides being microsized. Some parts of the station are not even inside the station but in plots nearby that DMRC was forced to find, including below the Ashram flyover.

The station is part of the 9.7-km long Lajpat Nagar-Mayur Vihar Pocket 1 section of the Pink Line (Majlis Park-Shiv Vihar), which will start operating from Monday. The new station provides metro connectivity to localities such as Bhogal, Sunlight Colony, Siddhartha Enclave, Friends Colony, Maharani Bagh, New Friends Colony and Kilokri.

Ashram was planned as any other underground station, but DMRC didn’t anticipate the road blocks related to land acquisition. In fact, replanning was required after the company failed to acquire a private plot that comprised almost 40% of the planned layout of the station.

“Construction was under way when we realised the land under which the proposed station box was to be constructed was unavailable,” a DMRC official explained. “Given the constraints placed by an existing flyover on one side of the station box and apartments along the other, we could not shift or relocate the station box. We decided to, therefore, explore new designs to contain the station box within the space available to us.”

The platform for a typical six-coach train is 140 metres, but this has been reduced to 135 metres at Ashram, just enough for a three-metre width in front of the passenger doors and driver’s cabin door. “The centreline of the platform was also shifted 57 metres towards Hazrat Nizamuddin station to keep the platform length within the station box,” the official said. “This ensured that the passenger service area, including island platform, stairs, escalators and lift, remained undisturbed.”

DMRC built a mezzanine floor between the platform and concourse to accommodate the token vending machines and Automatic Fare Collection gates. “The only space available to us was the one below the public road. The building with the cooling towers, pump room, generator sets, etc, had to be built on a nearby plot,” the official said. DMRC used space below the Ashram flyover for a chiller room since space was not available in the station building.

From the station’s platform, passengers will see the mouth of the tunnel up close unlike in any metro station. This is because the nearly 40-metre tunnel ventilation system is missing in Ashram. Only eight metres of air nozzles are present at the platform level instead of the usual 40, and the two tunnel ventilation fans are placed one over the other across the tracks at concourse and mezzanine levels, connected with each other and the tracks by vertical plenums. This is the first time DMRC has tried a system like this.

The official also disclosed that the auxiliary sub-station, which is usually located at the platform level, has been shifted to the concourse. And unlike in other underground stations, only one side of the concourse area is open to passengers, the other being occupied by the station control room and utility rooms.

“Ashram can serve as a prototype for stations in Phase IV facing space constraints,” the official said. “In fact, we can actually rethink the land space we usually acquire for stations.”