CS orders fast-track Gurugram Metro land, utilities

GURUGRAM: Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi on Friday, 21 August 2026, directed the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA), Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP), the district administration and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to expedite Phase-1 land acquisition and the removal of utilities and other obstacles for the Gurugram Metro. The instructions were issued at the fifth high-powered Gurugram Metro committee meeting in Chandigarh and were reported on 22 August 2026.

Gurugram Metro Rail Limited (GMRL) requires private land at Kanhai, Islampur and Basai for depot, stations and track works. The Chief Secretary asked the Deputy Commissioner of Gurugram, who heads the land purchase committee, and the HSVP Administrator to treat these acquisitions as a priority so that construction packages are not held up by incomplete land parcels along the alignment.

Utility shifting and pending court listings

Specific directions covered several known bottlenecks. HVPN was told to transfer land of the Sector 33 220-kV substation that falls within the depot site to GMRL. NHAI was asked to clear the stretch between Hero Honda Chowk and Umang Bhardwaj Chowk, a corridor where highway and metro works intersect daily traffic. An electricity substation shift is already underway. Separately, a Forest Department land transfer proposal for Sector 10 has been submitted and sits in the clearance matrix before the committee.

Legal hurdles remain on the calendar. Four houses in Saraswati Enclave are before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, with the matter listed for 31 August 2026. A hearing relating to the Haryana City Gas CNG station is listed for 24 August 2026. The committee’s push for speed on administrative transfers therefore runs alongside these court timelines, which agencies will have to factor into execution schedules before track and depot packages can be treated as fully clear.

The Phase-1 project links Millennium City Centre to Cyber City, with a spur on the Dwarka Expressway. It was approved in 2023 at ₹5,452 crore; the scope and cost have since been revised. Officials at the Chandigarh meeting stressed that land and utility clearances—not merely financial sanction—now determine how quickly civil works can move from paper to site at Kanhai, Islampur, Basai and the Sector 33 depot footprint. Until the HVPN transfer, NHAI stretch clearance and Forest Department proposal move, GMRL’s depot and station packages remain tied to those agency calendars as much as to the ₹5,452 crore sanction. The 24 August CNG hearing and the 31 August Saraswati Enclave listing are the next court dates on that critical path.