Chennai Metro Rail’s Phase II project will expand further and with more stations, in the revised alignment for the network. There will be 128 stations in the 118.9 km network. In this mammoth project, at first, two corridors — Madhavaram to CMBT, and Madhavaram to Shollinganallur — will be constructed at first. While tenders will be floated in a few months, the work itself will begin by the end of this year, sources said.
Highly placed sources told The Hindu that funds from Centre for this project are likely to be come soon. “We have already begun the process of looking at the documents submitted for funds for this project. We will approve at the earliest,” a source said. Last week, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami had requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a 50:50 joint venture partnership for this project and this means, the Centre will be providing ₹11,100 crore over a period of six years.
But unlike the Phase I and Phase I extension project, Chennai Metro Rail will not wait to begin the work on this project till Centre provides funds. “We already have funds to start this project and the first tranche of loan from JICA will also come in, which will allow us start construction. Meanwhile, we understand the funds from Centre too will be granted very soon,” another source said.
Earlier, the network of Chennai Metro Rail was 108 km with 108 stations but that subsequently has now become 118.9 km with 128 stations. Some of the new stations added in the project include Alapakkam Junction, Kamaraj Garden Street near Medavakkam, DLF IT SEZ and Chennai Bypass Crossing near Sri Ramachandra Hospital, Porur. Also, of the 128, 80 will be elevated stations (including one station at grade) and 48 stations will be underground. As the number of stations have gone up, in some areas, there will be a station in less than a kilometre.
Meanwhile, the detailed design for some of the stretches of Phase II are in progress. “The detailed design documents will only show all the finer details of this project. After the detailed design is over, we may know if the minor changes in the project, if any,” another source said.
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