GHAZIABAD: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Ghaziabad on Friday to inaugurate the civil terminal of Hindon air force base and the Dilshad Garden-Shaheed Sthal (New Bus Adda) Red Line Extension . He will also lay the foundation stone for the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut rapid rail corridor.The projects will be among the last to be launched or inaugurated before the Lok Sabha election dates are announced and the model code of conduct comes into effect. The PM will be accompanied by chief minister Yogi Adityanath and Ghaziabad MP Gen VK Singh (retd).Modi is expected to land at Hindon IAF base at around 3.30pm after wrapping up public engagements in Varanasi and Kanpur, said a BJP functionary. He will head straight to Shaheed Sthal (New Bus Adda) metro station where he will flag off the new elevated section of the Red Line with eight stations.The line will make metro access much easier for people living in Ghaziabad, who now have to travel all the way to Vaishali or Dilshad Garden to reach the metro network. Passenger services on this line will begin on Saturday, with the first train scheduled for 8am.The other metro corridor waiting to be inaugurated — Blue Line Extension (Noida City Centre to Electronic City) — will also be flagged off by the PM but on Saturday, when he visits Greater Noida to open the Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Institute of Archaeology, said senior officials in the district administration. Passenger operations on this line, whose terminal station is on NH-24 and on the doorstep of Indirapuram, will begin from 4pm Saturday.The corridor is also critical to ridership of the Noida-Greater Noida Aqua Line, which will be connected to the Blue Line Extension via a walkway at Sector 51.On Friday, after opening the Red Line Extension, Modi is expected to ride to the next station (Hindon river) before heading to Sikandarpur to inaugurate the Hindon airport civil terminal. The terminal, which will connect Hindon to Gulbarga, Nashik, Hubali, Shimla, Pithoragarh, Jamnagar, Kannur and Faizabad from May, is aimed at benefitting passengers flying from western UP and NCR. It is, however, a temporary arrangement, which will remain operational only during the course of the expansion of Delhi’s IGI airport.Modi is also expected to unveil various projects for education, housing, drinking water, sanitation and sewerage management in Ghaziabad. Modi will later address a rally nearby, for which a massive pandal has been erected. The venue can accommodate 1 lakh people and seating arrangements for 35,000 have been made.

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