New Delhi - East Delhi residents have more than one reason to cheer. Even as the 2.1km extension to Delhi Metro’s existing Line 3 was flagged off on Sunday, DMRC chief E Sreedharan, announced that the Noida section of the metro would be opened for public by August this year.

‘‘We plan to open the rest of this line up to Noida sector 32 by end of August. Unlike the earlier plan, the line will be opened in one go. We are only waiting for the trains to be available,’’ said Sreedharan.

The Metro chief added the trains have already started coming. The corporation has got one standard gauge and one broad gauge train, both of which are under commissioning. About nine more trains are expected by July and seven more in August. Initially, three trains will be deployed on Line 3, followed by two more on Line 2 as the present network is grossly congested.

The other sections to be opened this year include the Inderlok-Mundka route to be operational by October and the Anand Vihar section by December. Tracks measuring nearly 38 will be added to the Delhi Metro network this year, Sreedharan added.

Train operations on the new extension started from 6am on Sunday. A few hours later, Sreedharan along with senior Metro officials inspected the stretch and took a train ride from Indraprastha to Yamuna Bank station. Said Sreedharan: ‘‘This is a very small line. But in our scheme of things, it is a very significant step as it will allow us to open further sections in Phase II.’’

With the opening of this section, DMRC will now operate 30 train sets on Line 3 instead of 29 train sets earlier taking the number of trips on Line 3 will increase from 407 to 413. The peak hour frequency will be 3 minutes 30 seconds and travelling time from Dwarka Sector 9 to Yamuna Bank will be 61.5 minutes. This section was earlier scheduled to be opened along with the Noida corridor in October 2009, but has now opened five months ahead of schedule.

The Yamuna Bank station is located a little off the main road on the river bank but it will be accessible to residents even before the main Noida line opens. Those living in nearby localities can avail of the feeder bus services, also started from Sunday on two routes. The first route will go to Mayur Vihar Phase -3 via Vikas Marg, New Patparganj Road, Mother Diary, Mayur Vihar Phase -2, Pocket C, Kalyanpuri, Kondli and Gharoli. The second route will connect Jheel/ Rajgarh Colony via Vikas Marg, Laxmi Nagar, Shakarpur, Khureji, Rashid Market, Shivpuri and Geeta Colony. As for running feeder buses to Ghaziabad, DMRC said it is seeking permission from the UP government.

The new section has one station at Yamuna Bank. Yamuna Depot station is an important interchange station as the Anand Vihar ISBT Corridor and the Noida corridor will diverge from this point in the future. The station complex is part of a larger train maintenance depot so the opening of this section will also enable DMRC to open the new train maintenance depot.