Residents of Gurgaon can hope to board a Metro train to reach south Delhi

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from June 15, with the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety set to inspect the Gurgaon-Qutub Minar line on Wednesday and Thursday for his mandatory clearance.

People of the Millennium City have been waiting for an effective transport system to travel to and from Delhi and the launch of Metro services is likely to ease some pressure on road traffic.

Delhi government sources said Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) R K Kardam has agreed to inspect the line on June 9 and June 10 following which he will give the mandatory no-objection certificate to the DMRC for launching train services on the line.

Once the CMRS gives the safety clearance certificate, the DMRC can open the line anytime after that. It is likely that the services on the line will be started from June 15, the sources said.

Earlier, the DMRC had planned to inaugurate the entire stretch from Central Secretariat-Gurgaon at one go. But now the 27-km corridor will be thrown open in two phases.

Once the services start, Gurgaon will become the second satellite city to get Metro connectivity after Noida, where it reached last November.

During the inspection, the CMRS will check the functioning of the electrification and signalling systems, tracks and all the stations.

The trial runs on the Gurgaon-Qutub Minar section have been successfully completed.

DMRC wrote to the CMRS in mid-May asking him to inspect the line after it decided to thrown open the 27-km Central Secretariat-HUDA City Centre (Gurgaon) in two stretches. The 13 km line connecting Qutub Minar with Central Secretariat is likely to be opened by mid-July.

Ultimately, the line will be integrated with the existing Line 2 (Jehangirpuri-Central Secretariat).

Once the entire section becomes operational, passengers can hope to reach the millennium city in around an hour from Connaught Place in the heart of Delhi.

The civil work on the stretch is almost over and the DMRC will initially put weight trains on the line and once the entire corridor opens, there will a total of 60 trains at a frequency of three to four minutes.

The Central Secretariat-HUDA City Centre line, built at a total cost of Rs 3,720 crore, is expected to add over 3. 4 lakh people to the Metro system by 2011.