Chennai Metro Rail’s work along a section of the OMR for the upcoming phase II project in the city, which remained suspended for many months, is all set to resume finally.
As part of the ₹61,843-crore phase II project, three corridors — Madhavaram to SIPCOT (corridor 3), Light House to Poonamallee (corridor 4) and Madhavaram to Sholinganallur (corridor 5) are currently in various stages of construction.
The corridor 3 not only covers the northern parts of the city but also runs through a substantial part of the OMR too, from Taramani till SIPCOT. Though work started sometime back between Sholinganallur to SIPCOT, it came to a halt later, as one of the subcontractor’s contract was terminated due to various reasons.
According to officials of Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL), the new subcontractor who has been engaged for carrying out work along this stretch had a small ceremony a few days back before beginning the piling work and the full-fledged construction will take off shortly. “We are expecting more equipment like piling rigs to come in, in the next few days. It is going to take a bit of time for the work to pick up speed but it begins, we don’t foresee any issues like those in underground stretches,” an official said.
While on a major part of the stretch, the piling work had already begun, there was barely any progress of work near SIPCOT. Officials said the subcontractor would simultaneously focus on both areas. “Where the piling work has started, they will resume the pile cap work. Towards SIPCOT, they will start with the piling work,” another source said.
This disruption in the construction work along this stretch has resulted in a delay of about 3-4 months, the official said. “The new contractor can make up for the lost time to some extent. But even then, we expect that there could be some delay. We are trying our best to reduce it as much as possible,” he added.
