The underground Metro station slated to come up on Anna Salai near the new complex, which is to be converted into a multi-specialty hospital, has begun to take shape. Preliminary work on shifting power cables and water supply pipes commenced recently.
The Chennai Metro Rail Limited has been temporarily allotted a strip of land within the complex, which the previous DMK government had constructed for relocating the Secretariat. A senior CMRL official said that the entry and exit to the station would come up within the campus of the complex. One of the diaphragm walls of the underground chamber would also be inside the complex. Station construction is expected to start by next month.
Since the facility was originally supposed to come up inside a high-security zone, the station plan includes additional space for metal detectors and scanners at the entry/exit points. The station would be integrated with the existing pedestrian subway across Anna Salai.
The CMRL official said that work has also commenced in Saidapet where the underground Metro tunnel would emerge out in the form of a ramp, before joining the elevated corridor at Little Mount. Keeping in mind the onset of the monsoon, the soil testing work is nearly complete, he added. Underground tunnelling is expected to begin by February, 2013.
The construction of the two Metro Rail corridors in Phase I, totalling 45-km in length, was inaugurated in June 2009. The first corridor will run between Washermenpet and the airport through Anna Salai. The second corridor is between Chennai Central and St. Thomas Mount and it would predominantly pass through Poonamallee High Road and Jawaharlal Nehru Salai.
